\ZVK46<«» 



44 



A DEAD past; 



-AN- 



ORIGINAL DRAMA IN 4 ACTS. 



WRITTEN BY 



Walter Reynolds 



Copyright Secured in Great Britain and in the United States 
OF America. 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1884, by Walter Reynolds, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



44 



A DEAD PAST." 



-AN- 



ORIGINAL DRAMA IN 4 ACTS. 



WRITIEN BY 



Waltee Reynolds. 



Copyright Secured in Great Britain and in the United States 
OF America. 






Entered according- to Act of Congress in the year 1884, by Walter Reynolds , 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



DRAMATIS PERSON/E 



DOUGLAS, LORD DYNEVOR. 
COLONEL SIR BRETON OSBORNE. 
LORD ARTHUR RIVERDALE. 
COUNT LEON BONAPARTE FRITOUT. 
BINGS, AN OLD FAMILY SERVANT. 
ADOLPHUS, A NEW FAMILY SERVANT. 
MERTON, A USEFUL FAMILY SERVANT. 
JENKYNS, A GOVERNMENT SERVANT. 

LADY SYBIL RIVERDALE, 

SADIE SANDUSKY. 

MAGARET KILSYTH. 

MISS RASP, A BUSTLING SERVANT. 



THPS6-007150 



ACT I. 

The Bynevor Woods in Autumn. Stag^e covered with fallen 
leaves, tree trunk, &c., &c. 

Discovered. Bings, Adolphus and Merton. 

Merton and Bings are completing the setting of a lunch 
which is partly laid. Adolphus is in a gorgeous livery, stand- 
ing rigidly, upright and stiff. "When Bings orders him to a 
duty, he passes the directions to Merton, who carries them out. 

Adolpli {to Merton). Here ! another plate ! 

Merton {lays plate). 

Bings {with Ms Jiand to his ear). Eh ? 

Adolph. I — aw — said — another plate*. 

Bings. Late, yes, they are very late, two o'clock they were to get 
here; never mind, it's a cold lunch, so it won't spoil. 

Adolph. How many — aw — are to partake ? 

Bings {with ear biz). Eh ? 

Adolph {loudly). How many persons will there be to lunch ? 

Bings. Punch! No, there was no punch ordered. There's plenty 
of wines tho', of course. 

Adolph. Oh ! it's really altogether beneath one's dignity to bawl 
into the ear of an old idiot like this, but what is a gentleman to do. 
{Calls very loudly), How many are going to sit down ? 

Merton {is handing out a roast duck from basket and is passing it to 
Adolph who is not noticing.) 

Bings {pointing to the duck). A bit brown. Oh, yes, but His 
Lordship likes his poultry so. 

Merton {thinks Adolph has the duck, and lets it fall on ground). 

Adolph. Clumsy ass! {takes stage with dignity R). 

Bings {hurriedly picking up duck and crossing to Adolph). Do you 
see what you have done ? The duck is all over grit. 

Adolph. No — aw— it's the grit is all over the duck. 

Bings. Bad luck ! I should think it was. Get me a napkin. 

Adolph {going towards basket). Keally, my life is not worth having 
with this old imbecile. I must speak to His Lordship about it. 

Bings. Did ever any one see such careless boobies. A nice state 
this is in to place before ladies and gentlemen. Come on with that 
cloth. 

Adolph {instructs Merton to get cloth). There's one twisted round 
those glasses, unwind it. 

Bings. Can't find it. Then, confound you, for a stupid jacka- 
napes. Why, I could get thro' the work quicker without you. 



Well, what the eye don't see, the heart doesn't grieve for — {hesitates, 
then wipes duck clean with the tail of his coat, polishes it with his sleeve 
and places it on dish. G). 

Adolph It's all set now. Really, I'm quite fatigued with so 
much exertion. {To Merton). Open me a dry monopole. (Merton 
does so, popping cork). 

Bings. {turning from spread, not having seen this). Ah! they're 
coming now. I heard a shot. (Sees Adolph drinking.) Well, upon 
my soul, that's good. 

Adolph. Yes, it's a fair brand, but I think I prefer Mumm, Extra 
Dry. I must speak to His Lordship about it. 

Enter Count Fritout. 

Count. Ha, gentlemen, comment cava! {To Adolph.) If you 
vil permettez moi, I vil join you. 

Adolph. {Ordering Merton to pour a glass for Count). 

Count. {Drinks.) Ha! Bon, bon, as good as a French vine, as 
vas evare f atrique out of English gooseberries. {Xs.) Ah ! Mon- 
sieur Bings, ca va bien ? 

Bings. {Automatically with hand to ear) Oui, oui. 

Count. You have choisis un place bien charmant, f©r ze lunch. 

Bings. Punch, non, oui, oui. 

Count. Zey are comings, 1 am yere avant coureur. Is everysing 
ready ? 

Bings. Oui, oui. 

Count. For 2 ladies and 3 gentlemen. 

Bings. Oui, oui. 

Count. Vat is dis, toujours oui, oui ? 

Bings. Oui, oui. 

Count. M. Bings, do you make your chokes on me ? 

Bings. Oui, oui. 

Count Zen I tell you zat you forget your place, prenez garde, 
do you take me for un fool ? 

Bings. Oui, oui. 

Count. Sacre non, I vil not shall suffer it, M. Bings. Je suis un 
Conte Francais, Le Conte Fritout, and it is not parceque I haves 
poverty, that you shall mettre sur moi vos insultes, if you insult 
me, vous me donnerez satisfaction, do you hear ? 

Bings. Hear, oh, oui, oui. 

Count. {In rage) Vat you von Engleesh donkey jackass. 

Bings Oui, oui. 

Count. {In great rage, would almost strike him.) . 

Adolph. {Strolls down haughtily and points to his ear,) 

Count. Vat is dis ? {Burlesquing ear bus.) 

Adolph. The old ass is deaf. 

Count. Deaf ! Vat you call him ear vas broke and shut up ? Oh, 
Je vous prie ten mille pardons, oh cher mon Bings. You pardon 
me? 

Bings. Oui, oui. 

Count. Oh, you are noble, like all ze brave Engleesh. {Embraces 
him) Oh, mon cher ami. 

Bings. {Struggling free in amazement) What fearful fools these 
foreigners are, I believe he takes me for a woman, {looking off) 
Ah ! places, here they come, now, bustle, look lively, {servants stand 
hack ready to wait at table.) 



Enter Colonel Breton Osborne, Lord Riverdale and Sadie 
Sandusky. 

Sadie. Well, this is real sweet, a perfect Paradise. I must admit 
that in the matter of rural scenery you English do beat we Ameri- 
cans. Our landscapes seem to be still in the unfinished state when 
compared to your's, which have had all the last touches of nature 
and art lavished on them. 

Col. There's nothing in them but monotony and dulness, even 
beauty attenuated becomes tiresome. 

Count. Oh! comme vous etes ungallant to ze ladies, colonel. 

Col. Oh, female beauty is always fresh and charming. 

Sadie. Very kind of you to admit so much of our poor grateful 
sex, but Where's Lord Dynevor? 

Col. Where I expected to find him when I got here this morn- 
ing, where he always is. By her side. 

Sadie. Her side, whose ? 

Col. Lady Sybil's. 

Sadie. Ha, ha, ha. So that's the way the wind blows. Colonel, 
Sir Breton Osborne, I know what brought you up from London this 
morning. 

Col. Indeed, what? 

Sadie. You are jealous of Lord Douglas Dynevor. 

Col. You don't know so much about Douglas Dynevor as I do, 
or you would see that I had no cause to give house room to the green 
eyed monster on his account; beside, you flatter him. 

Sadie. Oh, I don't see that, for my part, if I were prospecting 
for a husband,' there isn't a gentleman in Great Britain whom I 
should prefer to His Lordship. 

River (ade) I was afraid she didn't care a straw about me. 

Col. You may easily hook him. 

Sadie. Hook him ! Don't speak of His Lordship as tho' he were 
a mackerel. 

Col. I mean because he has very little else beside his title. He 
is as poor as his curate. 

Sadie. Poor, bah ! That's where you English cut such misera- 
ble figures in our eyes, because a man doesn't happen to possess a 
million or two, you give him the perpetual cold shoulder and make 
him feel as tho' his poverty was a crime Now, on our side, we 
don't ask what is the condition of a man's banking account, but we 
dig right into his character, and if his balance there is found to be 
on the right side of the books, why, we hold out a hand to him 
quite satisfied as long as he can call himself an honest man. 

Enter Lord Dynevor and Lady Sybil. 

Dyn The noblest of all titles, and one that no sovereign on earth 
can confer upon an aristocratic rogue . 

Count. Bravo! Bravissimo. Vive Legalite Fraternite. 

Col. (ade to Sadie) I told you they w«re together. 

Sadie. I told you you were jealous. 

Dyn. Ah, Sir Breton, you here ? I didn't expect to see you. 

Col. No, I suppose not; but I'm here all the same. (Crossing to 
Lady Sybil and offering hand ) How dy'e do. Lady Sibil. (She 
bows.) 

Dyn. I believe we're a little behind time. 

Sybil. Yes; but the walk here was so delightful that we must be 
excused. 



River. What matters ! Time was made for slaves. 

Count. Yes, for matried ones, to zem it is eternity* 

Omnes. {Laugh.) 

Sybil. Oh, what a wicked speech! 

Byn,. One would think the Count spoke from experience ; but 
come, let's sit down and fall too. 

Count Yes, ze cold lunch vil be hot bake in ze sun else— 

hyn. Conducts Lady Sybil to place. River with Sadie. Seats him- 
self at head (7, the other gentlemen on ground R and L.) Ah, Bings, 
another knife and fork, we didn't expect the colonel, you know. 

Col. That's twice already youv e reminded me of the fact. 

Byn. Is it ? I beg your pardon ; I'm very sorry. 

Sadie. 1 don't believe you are one bit sorry, and you should 
never pretend to what you don't feel. 

Col. Ah, in that society^ course has its inconveniences sometimes* 

Sadie. Yes, it has ; but I was reared in the lumber region of the 
Far West where we don't dress up our words in 18-button kid 
gloves, and I don't think it would do society much harm in the 
long run if it were to adopt some of our say-what-you-think kind 
of principles. 

Col. Ah, you American ladies affect this fashion of plain speak- 
ing towards our old-world codes and institutions, but with the most 
charining inconsistency, you continue to come within their circle 
and set your caps at the very objects for which you profess the most 
contempt, standing with your lumber-made fortunes in your hands 
ready to barter them against the first title which is forced by pov- 
erty to the exchange. 

Sadie. No, Sir Breton, not the first. 

Col. No? 

Sadie. Ko, for you boast a title yourself. 

Col. You are complimentary. 

Sadie. Am I ? then I beg your pardon ; I didn't mean to be. 

Col. Plain spoken, too. 

Sadie. We American ladies affect the fashion. 

Byn. I'm afraid the air has made your wits as keen as your appe- 
tites. Come, eat and subdue them both. {They feed.) 

River. You deserved that, Osborne, for being so surly and synical. 

Sadie. Jealous people always are. 

River. Well, after all, jealousy is natural, and there's one quality 
it inspires for which I respect it, and that's pluck. 

Sadie. Do you admire pluck ! 

River. I do, because I'm such an awful coward. I'd rather face 
a cannon than a woman. 

Sadie. But you have often faced one. 

River. Ko — at least, not a loaded one. 

Count. Vat, a loaded voman ? 

River. No ; a cannon, of course. 

Count. For myself, I have face many vomen and many cannon, 
and viz all respect, I prefer ze cannon at all times. 

Sadie. You monster ! 

Sybil. Has your experience of the weaker sex been so very un- 
fortunate, Count? 

Count. Weaker sex? Zat is a mistake. A voman is always, 
sometimes ten times so strong as a man, always. 

Sybil. In what way. Count ? 

Count. In a married way. 



Biver. Strange talk that, from a bachelor. 

Count. Moi, iin bachelor ! Mon dieii, if I only vas. 1 vould give 
ten years of my existence to be once more times un bachelor again, 
bat it is no use. I vas marry in France vare ze laws of marriage 
are ze most pitiless in ze world. Zere ven a man and voman are 
prononce man and wife, a legal chain is forge about zem which 
neither insult nor crime can break asunder, and which binds zem 
mercilessly till death. 

River. Then there has been a Countess Fritout? 

Count. Has been ? Mon dieu ! Zere is, my Lord. 

River. Indeed, and where is the lady. 

Count. I not know, and I not care. When she did know vere I 
vas, she lead me ze dogs life. One day ze chain snap broken ; I 
ran myself loose from her, and I care not vezer she be in Jericho 
or Egypt 

Sadie How much better we do these things on our side of the 
pond. If two people get married wdth us, they can take each other 
on trial, as it were, and if their incompatibilities become too trouble- 
some, they can appeal to the law, which, like a wise guardian, frees 
them from their yoke, and both can go their own road again. A little 
duck, if you please. {Merion gets it.) 

Dyn. The Americans are right, too, for there can be no justifica- 
tion for a law which sometimes degrades a woman in a life-long 
servitude to a brutal savage, or chains her whole existence to a 
drunken wretch. 

Count. Ah, bon! Mais ven ze leg is in ze ozer boot? When it 
is ze voman zat is — 

Sadie. The woman! Oh, women, never do anything wrong; at 
least not in the States. 

Count. Vel, Je suppose it is not every w^oman zat make zere 
husband so miserable as mine make me. 

Col. I don't know. Lord Dynevor, 1 believe, is another terrible 
example; and that's why he speaks so enthusiastically, I suppose. 

Count. Vat ! has my Lord Dynevor been unfortunate as well ? 

Byn. {evading question.) Excuse me. Count; you are not eating; 
some chicken. Lady Sybil. Bings, Chateau Lafitte. {Adolph orders 
Merton.) 

Bings. {ear bus) Beg pardon, my Lord ? 

Byn. Some wine. The ladies w^ould like a little Lafitte. 

Bings. Cold to the ladies' feet. Oh, Adolphus, bring a rug. 

Omens, {laugh.) 

Byn. Poor Bings. I'm always forgetting his infirmity. 

Col Why don't you pension ofl' the old fossil. 

Sybil. Oh ! His Lordship could not part with poor old Mr. Bings; 
he has been in the family all his life. 

Col. {ade.) How her face brightens with the slightest touch of 
interest to him or his. {Aid.) Oh, I'm not surprised that Dynevor 
expresses himself so forcibly on the divorce question. 

Count. Vraiment, why? 

River. Oh, come, Osborne ; I say, suppose we change the sub- 
ject; this one is very dry. 

Col. What; do you shirk it then, as well as he V 

Sybil. Suppose 'we talk about trade. 

Sadie. Ah ! there, /'wi at home. In trade, the American beats all 
creation. His flag flies in every corner of every land. 

Lyn. But is hardly ever seen upon the sea. 

Sadie. Eh ? 



Dyn. Oh, it's true ! when he wants to cross the ocean he has to 
get a foreign-built ship to carry him. 

Sadie. Well, you may be right in that, but in politics— 

Byn. Oh, politics he leaves entirely to the Irish. 

Sadie. Well, then, in love. 

Dyn. Ah, there, I confess you corner me. 

Sadie. I should think I did. Yes, sir ; at any rate, we've got 
love and marriage down to a fine point in the States. Given-a-ball, 
masculine meets feminine — introduced, exchange glances, she 
droops her eyes, he sighs a sigh, both palpitate some in the region 
of the diaphragm. Good evening; call in again. He calls next 
day. Good morning ; moves his sentiments; she seconds the 
motion, resolution carried, parson visited consummation, marriage, 
live happy ever after. 

Col. Or at least, until the divorce court sets them at liberty to 
recommence the routine. But, there, so long as a woman can 
render some sort of esteem to her husband, and he can provide her 
with all the luxuries that modern life has rendered indispensable, 
love is a superfluity. 

Sadie. A superfluity — love is a myth. I heard a great deal 
about it when I was at school in Boston, but I've never had any 
proofs of its existence. 

River. You cold-blooded little woman, never ? 

Sadie. Never, 

Rii^er. But you'd like to have it proved to you, wouldn't you ? 

Sadie. Oh, yes ; if it was real love ; but the so-called samples of 
the article which have been submitted to me up till now have been 
as dull and stupid as New England Sundays, and lots of Yankee 
girls have assured me they would rather any day have a Yanit-y Fair, 
or a pick-me-up at Delmonico's, than five minutes of that excessively, 
boring institution of society called a spoon. 

Biver. Ah, they're wicked, those Yankee girls, and don't know 
what love is ; that's my belief. 

Count. Take care, prenez garde ; I vas once in love. 

Sadie. What, with your wife ? 

Count. Oh, non, non ; not for un moment. 

Sadie I thought that was too much to expect of any Frenchman. 

Omnes. (^Laugh^ 

River. Now, I plead guilty to being sentimental, and I can con- 
ceive no greater happiness than being eternally in love with one's 
wife. 

Dyn Nor I, and living a life that should be one long poem set 
to the happy melody of the wedding bells. 

Col. Yes, the theory sounds pretty, not to say lackadaisical, but 
the practice doesn't obtain nowadays. 

River. Nowadays are bad days. All the honest qualities of our 
human nature are laughed down. 

Dyn The outcome of our lightning civilization, which has en- 
larged our brains and contracted our hearts. 

Count. And ruined our stomachs. 

Sadie. That's true of us, for every American is a dyspeptic. 

Dyn. Then, how can one expect to be in love when one has indi- 
gestion? 

Sadie. Oh, we get heartburn, which is the American equivalent. 

Sybil. It's a shame to joke upon a sacred subject. I have been 
taught to regard marriage as the holiest of all human sacraments, 



and to hold those who become united for money or convenience as 
guilty of the worst of blasphemies. 

Dyn. And so they are, and richly deserve all the misery that such 
a course entails upon them. 

River. For my part, I would rather marry a peasant who really 
loved me, than a Princess if she did not. 

Col. Ah ! Riverdale, you are positively too good to be at large. 
You ought to be on exhibition in a glass case, labelled : " The Ani- 
mated Virtues." 

Sadie. And you, Colonel, might be locked up in an iron cage, 
with the notice : "Beware! the animal inside is spiteful," painted 
on the bars. {Eating fiece of duck) Oh! oh! oh! [Holds her 
mouth.) 

River. My dear Miss Sandusky, what is the matter ? 

Sadie. The duck! 

Omnes and servants. The duck ! 

Sadie. {Putting serviette to her mouth and 'withdratving it .) There, 
is it one of my teeth ? 

River. {Taking it and examining it.) No, it's a big bit of gravel, 
I think. {Holding it uf) 

Bings. {Shaking his fist at Adolfhus) You villain! {To Sadie.) 
It's an English wild duck. Miss, and they feed on pebbles. {Threat- 
ening Adolf h) 

Sadie. Well, Bings, I'm an American bird, and I don't. 

{Bings takes away her plate^ and in his rage^ not knowing, what to do 
with the bit of duck., at last throws it at Merton., who bobs; it hits Adol- 
phus, who retires to wife his face., with ultra dignified rage.) 

Adolph. Vulgar brute, to treat a gentleman like that, and before 
ladies, too. I must speak to His Lordship about it. 

River. Have something else Miss Sandusky ? 

Sadie. No ; thank you ; I'm not hungry anymore, but you might 
telegraph for a dentist. 

Col. {Has hem drinking very freely during scene and now becomes 
loud loTien speaking) Never mind, Miss Sandusky, a broken tooth 
is not so bad as a broken heart, and that is what I hear Dynevor's 
wife died of. 

Omnes. Lord Dynevor's wife ? 

Syhil Lord Dynevor's wife ? 

Col. What, have none of you ever heard the story of his mar- 
riage ? So he's been keeping dark, eh ? Oh, well, it's all past and 
gone now; so I'll relate it. 

Dyn. { Visibly angered.) You need not, Sir Breton, unless you 
think it absolutely necessary. 

Gol. Oh it'll pass the time. Here, you cad, give me some more 
wine. {AdolpJi. orders servant, who passes Col. wine. When the troops 
were ordered for service in India, Dynevor and I were in the same 
regiment, and as we quelled those Oriental niggers in less than no 
time, we fellows had nothing to do but to get into mischief, which 
you may be sure we did with all the industry peculiar to the 
British soldier. But the cream joke of the mess was Dynevor's 
falling in love with a black-eyed English girl he saw at the Corinth- 
ian in Calcutta 

Dyn. Do you feel bound to go on with the story, or will you be 
satisfied with the amusement it has already caused ? 

River. Pray consider His Lordship's feelings, Osborne. 

Col. Oh, give me some more wine, {Adolph and Merton bus.), 
we've no business with feelings in this age. Well the black eyes 



10 

were too much for him, and wheif the regiment was called home» 
Dynevor got leave, stayed behind in Paris, and by jingo, he married 
her under tlie French code, going thro' both ceremonies, the civil 
and the religious. Well, of course, we chaffed him unmercifully, 
and served him right too, for any man who is fool enough to marry 
a woman he knows nothing about, simply because she has a dainty 

figure and a pair of cunning eyes and lips, deserves all 

River. {Has risen and is talcing Sadie off on Ms arm.) 
Col. Here, Riverdale, old man. stop and hear it out. 
River. Excuse me, (going) Miss Sandusky, I will bring you 
back when Sir Breton has finished his very entertaining story. {Exit 
with Sadie.) 

Count. Lady Sybil, vil you ze honor do me ? {Offering her his 
arm.) 

Sybil. Thank you. Count, but I will remain to hear Sir Breton 
Osborne's apology for the insult he has put upon our host. 
Count. Bon bon, and he vil make it sapristi ! 
Gol. Apology! For what? The story is true, and if Lord Dyne- 
vor wishes you to believe. Lady Sybil, that it is not, I consider it my 
duty to undeceive you. 

Dyn. Lady Sybil, will you do me the favor of accepting the 
Count's escort and leaving me with Sir Breton? 

Syh'l. Thanks, no, for if Col. Osborne wishes me to believe that 
he is a gentleman, I consider it my duty to undeceive him. 

Count. Bravo ! a true spirit Engleesh lady {going. At Col.) A 
b^d spirit Engleesh dog. {Exit ) 

Dyn. Col. Osborne, you are not on the list of my invited guests. 
Why are you here ? 

Col. I am here in the character of friend to Lady Sybil. 
Dyn. I have yet to learn that she regards you as such. 
Col. Whether she does or not, I will convince her of my sincerity, 
by preventing her from being dragged blindfolded into a matrimo- 
nial alliance with 

Dyn. Be careful. Col. Osborne, I warn you my patience has 
it's limits. 

Col. So has mine, and I warn you that Lady Sybil shall thor- 
oughly understand h^r position and yours. 

Sybil. Thank you, Col. Osborne, but I am fully capable of look- 
ing after my own interests, and even were I not, you would certainly 
not be the person I should apply to to protect them {gives her arm 
to Dyn). Will you kindly see me to the hall, my Lord? 

Dyn. {Refering ^pointedly to Lady Sybil's action.) I trust, Sir 
Breton Osborne, you now fully understand my position and your 
own. {Going at wing, turns.) Good day! {Exit %vitk L. S.) 

Col. Cad! Prig! Conceited fool ! He always had the advantage 
. over me. In our school days, he had the luck of everything. From 
India he came out covered with honors, while I wasn't even men- 
tioned, and now, he thinks to run away with the only woman who 
ever fired my soul with anything like a real passion and whose 
money would pull me through my cursed difficulties. But she's too 
pretty and too rich to be lost without a struggle, and if hard hitting 
will win the fight he shan't complain of the lightness of my blows. 
That Yankee girl was right, I am madly jealous of him, and when 
I see him looking into her beautiful face as tho' his eyes were j'ead- 
ing her very soul, I feel that I could do for him {fause). He shan't 
have her. By Heaven, he shan't. 



11 

{The servants have cleared away the lunch during the Col.^s speech, 
Adolph returns.) 

Adolph. {Tapping Col. on the shoulder .) In your usual bad tem- 
per, Governor. 

Col. What is that to you ? 

Adolph. Oh come, don't be cross, but tell me what's the matter? 

Col. Nothing that you can mend, so get out. 

Adolph. Stuff, I've the instincts of a gentleman and can sympa- 
thize with all you're feeling now. You love Lady Sybil — 

Col. Silence, you vagabond ! 

Adolph. Oh, that's very rude, and likewise a reflection on your- 
self, for you keep my company. 

Col. Well, just now, I'd rather have your room. 

Adolph You always were an ungrateful beast, but you are par- 
ticularly so now, for you owe me thanks at least for having let you 
know so quickly that Lady Sybil was here and that your rival was 
laying siege to her heart. 

Col, I can see all this without you're telling, besides I don't 
want to be seen talking with you. So go. 

Adolph. I will, but I must take advantage of your visit to bleed 
you of another £10 note. I'm hard up. 

Col. And so am I. 

Adolph. Yes, that's the old story. Don't keep me waiting; it 
isn't gentlemanlike. 

Col. Isn't it enough that you get double wages; one from your 
master and one from me — that you will never cease to rob me ? 

Adolph. Rob ! Hark, at the pot calling the kettle black. Rob ! 
Robbery is no worse than cheating at cards. Why, one word from 
me and you'd be cashiered from your regiment to-morrow; so, hand 
over the money. 

Col. Well, I suppose I must. {Hands 7iote.) 

Adolph. I suppose so too. As Artemus said, you scratch my 
back and I'll scratch yours ; but if you don't scratch fair, why, I 
must speak to his Lordship about it. {Exit.) 

Col. To think that I should be at the mercy of a low-lived cur 
like that, who was my body servant in the regiment. He found out 
^00 much about me, so I must put up with him. 

Enter very cautiously at back, Margaret. 

Marg. {looking round). This must be the place. They told me at 
the house he was at luncheon in the woods. Ah, perhaps this gen- 
tleman — 

Col. {turns., seeing Marg..^ starts iti amazement) Great heaven ! 

Marg. What is the matter ? I trust I have not frightened you ? 

Col. Yes ; no ; that is, I was buried m thought, and not supposing 
any one to be near me, I must confess to being a little startled when 
I turned at seeing you. 

Marg. I didn't know there was anything about me to inspire 
alarm. 

Col. Oh, no ; on the contrary, everything to charm. How very 
extraordinary. I never saw anything like it in all my life. 

Marg. Like what ? 

Col. Oh, I beg your pardon. I was thinking aloud. {Pause.) 
You remind me so strongly of a lady I once knew that 1 could 
almost swear she had risen from the grave and was now standing 
before me. 



12 

Marg. I have indeed been very near to death, but thanks to a 
wonderful constitution, I am still above ground. 

Col. I am amazed! I thought myself proof against all sur- 
prises, but the astonishment the sight of your face and form have 
caused me has roused even me from the impassability of years. 
Might I ask your name ? 

Marg. Oh, yes; I am called Marguerite; that is, I am when I 
am in France. 

Col. Marguerite! Ye Gods! And your surname ? 

Marg. My surname \%— {looking off.) Ah, there he is; that is 
the person I have come to seek. Bonjour, Monsieur. {Exit.) 

Col. Stay one moment, Madame ; the fate of two men depends 
upon your answer. She does not heed me, but runs like a hare 
after some one who is also running in the direction of the hall. 
Who has she seen? What does she want? Can it be s/i6 herself ? 
No, impossible ; and yet, oh, if I could but be sure. I will be sure. 
{Calls.) Madame, madame. {Exit., calling after her.) 

Enter Sadie and Lord Riverdale. 

Sadie. Oh, yes, you may smoke, if you like. 

River. I like, but do you ? 

Sadie. Like ! But you will be shocked. 

River. With you ? I couldn't be. 

Sadie. Well, then, I — smoke — myself! 

River. No, do you? Then have a cigarette. {Offering one from 
case.) {He smokes.) 

Sadie. No, thanks; it's a vice I only indulge in private. It al- 
ways punishes me, too, and I don't like it ; but, like a number of 
other young ladies, I pretend I do. 

River. Why ? 

Sadie. Because, it's " the thing." Oh, what a hollow sham " the 
thing" is 

River. Do you think so ? 

Sadie. I do. Society altogether is a huge falsehood — a pretence, 
a merciless, ridiculous nineteenth century idolatrous mockery. 

River. With we English, yes. 

Sadie. Oh, with we Americans, as well. We have an aristocracy 
on our side. 

River. Have you ? 

Sadie. Oh, yes ; a privileged class that governs with money. 

River. Filthy lucre. 

Sadie. To which we bow just as low as you. Dimes and dollars 
are our Dukes and Duchesses. 

River. You expressed very different sentiments when speaking 
to Col. Osborne just now. 

Sadie. Ah, that was because he wanted taking down a peg or 
two. 

River. Admitting that, I still thought your people only acknowl- 
edged the nobility of right and merit. 

Sadie. We make a pretence of doing so, I know; but in the 
States, as everywhere else, merit with an empty pocket gets consid- 
erably left, I assure you. No sir ; it's greenbacks lords it over all — 
our railroads, our telegraphs, our lands, our everything. 

River. I've been told all men were equal under your flag. 

Sadie. A pleasant delusion, that is all ; for you can see any day a 
poor wretch who has stolen a loaf for his hungry wife and children 
get twelve months, while thimblerigging office-holders, who have 



13 



appropriated millions ride through the streets in carriages, the cost 
of which has actually been paid out of the very money the poor 
wretch in jail has contributed in the shape of taxes. 
River. {Pause^ sfnoking.) I like you. 

Do you ? Why ? 

Because you've got such an uncommon lot of common 



Sadie. 
River. 
sense. 
Sadie. 
River. 
Sadie. 
River. 
Sadie. 
River. 
Sadie. 
River. 



Have I ? 

Yes, and common sense is so uncommon. 
So it is. 

Now, I'm very common, but I've very little sense. 
Oh, I don't know that. 
That's because you don't know me. 
Oh, yes, I do; I've studied you. 

That exercise didn't take you long, for I'm very super- 
ficial. My outside, which is Poole's the tailor, is the best of me ; as 
for my heart, very small ; my soul, very smaller ; and my brain, 
very smallest compatible with existence outside of a lunatic asylum 

Sadie. It was a fair average heart that gave that poor widow 
woman a £5 note yesterday, and a very passable soul that visited the 
poor little girl who is down with the fever. 

River. How did you know that? 

Sadie. Widow women have grateful tongues and I have ears. 

River. Widow women have noisy millclacks. 

Sadie. Oh, come, you needn't be ashamed of being found out in 
a good action, it's not the first time I've caught you either, and I've 
come to the conclusion, that, take you altogether, you're a pretty 
good fellow, altho' you have got a title. 

River. I'll apologize for the title if it offends you, or better still, 
I'll share it with you. 

Sadie. Eh? 

River. Will you take it, fair halves ? 

Sadie. Oh, my lord, you've taken my breath away. 

River. Have I ? then take it back again. (Kisses her.) 

Sadie. Oh ! oh ! that's not the thing. 

River. Isn't it ? 

Sadie. Oh ! not at all. 

River. But like everything else that's outside the hollow sham — 
it's very jolly. 

Sadie. (Archly) Real sweet. 

River. And symbolical, as well. 

Sadie. Of what ? 

River. The good feeling between Great Britian 

Sadie. And the United States of America. 

River. Yes. 

Sadie. Of which both nations are so proud. 

River. And which both hope will never be disturbed. 

Sadie. Never ! 

River. Then shall we renew the friendly assurances. 

Sadie. As often as the representatives of both countries 

River. Feel that they like it. 

Sadie. Yes. 

River. (Kisses her and exeunt.) 

Enter Lady Sybil and Lord Dynevor. 

Bgn. (Speaking as he enters.) I would not have spoken yet, but 
for that man's insulting inuendoes, but Lady Sybil, if you will let 



14: 

me, I will tell you all, and you shall be my judge. When I was 
ordered with my regiment to India I was but a lad, and rushed into 
the fighting, as I did all else, with the raw inexperience of youth. 
At the close of the war, I met a woman in Calcutta who exercised 
what I now regard as an incredible fascination over me. It would 
be useless for me to attempt to excuse myself in your eyes, suffice 
it that I was inveigled into a marriage with her. It was but a few 
short weeks after I had made her my wife in Paris that I discovered 
how fearfully I had been duped. She was an accomplished adven- 
turess who had seized upon me for my supposed money and my 
title. To live with her was 'impossible, for having accomplished 
her end, she threw off all restraint and openly disgraced me every 
hour. In dispair I settled a sum of money on her and induced her, 
after a terrible and degrading scene, to leave the city, and live 
under her maiden name, discarding that which my title gave her, 
I .sold out my commission and wandered aimlessly about the 
world, tormented constantly by the spectre of my folly and dis- 
grace, and at length returned to England a broken man. When I 
met you, Lady Sybil, all the horror of my situation recurred 
with tenfold force, for to see you was to love you, madly, 
passionately, and hopelessly. I tried to avoid you, to drag my- 
self away from your presence, but it seemed as tho' I were 
tearing my very heartstrings asunder. My passion terrified 
me, and almost drove me mad, for it was a crime to love you. I 
had a wife who was not a wife, for our souls were not united and 
she herself was somewhere away in the world, I knew not where. 
But to-day, this very hour, the news has come of the poor creature's 
miserable death in a gambling hell in Paris. Osborne must have 
heard of it before I did myself. I pity her from my soul, indeed, 
indeed I do, yet if you could conceive of half the torture I have 
endured while chained to her by those pitiless bonds which the axe 
of death alone can sever, you, too, might perhaps, find some spark 
of pity in your heart for such a miserable man as I have been. 

Sybil. I would, I would, indeed, I would, 

Byn. Oh, if then, a life of devotion in the future could expiate 
the wretched past, and help you to forget what I once was, now that 
I am free. 

Sybil Free ! 

Dyn. Yes. Free to look into your eyes without reading in their 
depths a mute reproach — free to hold your hand in mine without re- 
morse, free to ask you if you can love and will take one with 
such a wretched past as mine to be your companion on the road 
of life. Sybil, can you ? will you ? 

Sybil. 1 can, I will, if only for pity for the suffering you have so 
nobly borne. Take me, and I will so devote myself to your future 
that your past shall be nothing to you henceforth than a dreadful 
dream from which you have awaked to the reality of my love. 

Dyn. Then you do really love me ? 

Sybil. I do, I do, with all my heart and soul ! {Embrace.) 

Enter at picture Col. Osborne, Riverdale and Sadie arm in arm 

Col. {Choking with rage.) I understand now why I was not an 
invited guest, but by Heaven — 

Dyn. Col. Osborne, I warn you — 

River. Come, Osborne, you have had too much wine. 

Col. Riverdale, I can settle my differences with Lord Dynevor 
without your Lordship's interference. 



15 

Dyn. I beg you will spare me further insult from your violence 
before Lady Sybil Riverdale who is now my promised wife. 

Sadie. Your affianced wife, oh I'm real glad. 

Col. Wife ! No, by Heaven, she shall never be your wife ! Not 
if I can help it. 

Sybil. My Lord, come away {to Dyn). 

Col. No, he shall not stir till 1 have done with him. 

Dyn. Col. Osborne, were it not for the presence of these ladies — 

Col. Ladies, oh I'm not afraid of them, nor do I need, like you, 
to make use of their presence as a shield for cowardice. 

Dyn. By Heaven ! — 

Sybil. {Restraining him.) Lord Douglas, let me beg of you — 

Col. Yes, hold him. Lady Sybil, and let him crawl off like a 
whipped hound. 

Sybil. Coward! {Releasing him.) 

Col. But if you go, I will still follow, and never leave you until 
I have convinced you that he will serve you as he did his first vic- 
tim, who has just died in Paris of a broken heart, and that you will 
be chaining yourself for life to a titled blackguard! 

Dyn. {Fells him at a bloxu.) 

Enter Bings, Adolphus, Merton. 
Picture. 



ACT 11. 

Chamber in Dynevor Hall. 

Discovered. Miss Rasp, Adolphus and Bings. 

Adolphus seated in chair R. Bings in chair L. 

Rasp. {Dusting, etc.) As usual, you see Mr. Bings, I have to 
do the work myself, for to leave it to those good-for-nothing lazy 
parlor maids is to leave it undone. {Dusting Adolph's chair.) 

Adolph. {Rising.) That old crocodile is a horrible nuisance. 
There is positively no peace in the house for a gentleman of my 
highly nervous temperament. 

Rasp. {Eyeing him contemptuously.) What are you standing 
there for like a figure in a wax works {imitates his ridiculously 
upright attitude.) What's the matter with your backbone ; won't it 
bend? 

Adolph. My bearing, Madame, is the result of my military educa- 
tion. When I was an officer's gentleman, I was the most upright 
man in the British army. 

Rasp). Upright! oh, get out; you must have swallowed a 
corporal's bayonet. 

Adolph. Miss Rasp, you arV positively pussonal, aw, painfully 
so. I must speak to his Lordship about it. 



16 

« 

Hasp. Mr. Adolphus, you are positively a fool, but there what 
could be expected from a man with a name like Adolphus ? 

Adolph. Or from a woman with a cognomen like Rasp? It 
positively grates like a cinder in the teeth. 

Hasp. " I'll thank you to remember who you are talking to {dusU 
ing 'cery hastily and getting angry)^ and if it comes to that, what 
right have you here at all ? {Threatening him with duster.) 

Adolph. Right ! I am Lord Dynevor's favorite gentleman, and 
I am here waiting for his pleasure as soon as he shall arrive. 

Rasp. Well, you will please wait for my pleasure in your own 
part of the house, which is the servant's hall, until he does arrive. 

Adolph. I, aw, do not take my orders from you. 

Rasp. You don't? 

Adolph. No ; but from your betters. 

Rasp. My betters, you puppy ! please to understand that I have 
been in this family all my life. 

Adolph. Then the sooner you leave it the better for the fam- 
ily- 

Rasp. Oh! oh! what! you image! you conceited essence of 
frills and flunkeyism ! take that ! {Striking him with duster^ he does 
does not wince under the bloios, nor change his attitude as he goes 
towards D. G. When there., he turns., seizes the duster from Rasp 
with mock regal dignity and throws it at her feet.) 

Adolph. An Henglishman never knows when he is beat, but this 
is really too hawful, and I must speak to his Lordship about it. 
{Exit majestically.) 

Rasp. {Rushing down, pulling Rings out of his chair and pull- 
ing him round to face her.) Did you ever see the like ? The 
cad! to put me in such a temper {loudly) oh! I could kill him; 
I declare he's made me go goose-flesh all dowm by back. 

Rings. {Ear bus.) Eh! my Lord and Lady got back V All right 
then, bustle, bustle. {Going C.]* 

Ras;p. Well, was ever a poor woman surrounded with such a 
lot of 4diots? What with that stick of horseradish that's just 
gone out, and this deaf old oyster, I'm nearly driven out of 
my mind. How ever His Lordship can tolerate them about him 
I don't understand. 

Rings. Well, Miss Rasp, come along, what's the use of stand- 
ing here while her Ladyship may be waiting to give you some 
commands 

Rasf. Come here. 

Sings. {Ear bus.) Eh ? 

Rasp. { Very loudly^ Come here. {Fetching him dorvn.) 

Rings. Can't hear? No, my hearing is not so good as it was, I 
know 

Rasp. {Ra-wling in his ear.) They've not got back yet. 

Rings. Oh ! I beg your pardon, then ; sit down again. 

Rasp. {They sit.) Well. I really think I must, for these two men 
are a little too much for me. What is a man like that good for in 
this world, anyway ? That's what I want to know. 

Rings. Do you know, Miss Rasp, I've been thinking that ever 
since his Lordship got married the second time. 

Rasp Yes, there is another piece of stupidity. I should have 
thought he'd had enough of marriage after the life of misery he 
led with that horrid woman. I'm sure those weeks we were in 
Paris he went thro' enough to turn^iiim grey. I used to ihink the 
men were bad, but she beat everything I ever saw. When a man is 



17 

really bad, lie's bad ; but when a woman is wicked, she's the very — 
ahem ! I'm not usually a cruel woman, Mr. Bings, but when I heard 
that creature was dead, I cried for joy. Just to think that our brave 
boy that I nursed myself should have linked his life and the title 
of our old house to such a wretch as she. Well, if there is a hot 
place down there, {pointing to floor) she's as warm as she could hope 
to be. 

Bings. I can't hear a blessed word you're saying, but I quite 
agree with you all the same. 

Enter Adolph, showing on Col. Osborne. 

Col. Take my hat. 

Adolph. {Taking hat.) I will, {ade?^ but if I hadn't got to keep 
up appearances, you should take mine instead. 

Col. What time are they expected ? 

Adolph. They have telegraphed they will be home to dinner. {Exit.) 

Col. Ah, Bings, Lord and Lady Dynevor not yet got back ? 

Biugs. {Ear bus.) Eh ? {Going up ) 

Col. Your master and mistress not got home to-day ? 

Bings. Me! going away? Yes, if you're going to stop, I am. 
{Exit?! 

Col. {Borving politely to Rasp, she turns her back on kim.) At 
any rate, Miss Rasp will not deny me the pleasure of her society? 

Rasp. No, you can't frighten me out of the room, like those 
cowards of men. 

Col. You don't seem to hold a very high opinion of me. 

Rasp. I've heard too much about you. 

Col. But I've never done you any harm. 

Rasp. No, but I've a terrible dislike of snakes, even though I've 
never been stung, and understand this, Colonel Osborne, the whole 
household is not at home when you call. Those are our orders and 
I hope I need noi explain the moral. 

Col. I perfectly understand, but I'm here on business ; to pay a 
debt, in fact, I owe v<mr master. 

Rasp. It's a bad debt, then, I'll be bound. 

Col. And so he returns to-day from a six months' honeymoon of 
unalloyed happiness. Eh? 

Rasp, Yes, but not half what he deserves. 

Col. No, I believe he is a very good young man and he ought to 
be happy in his second marriage, if only to compensate him for the 
disgrace of his first. 

Rasp. Sir Breton Osborne, it is not my place to discuss my mas- 
ter's affairs, and so please quit the subject; and, as in the absence of 
Her Ladyship I am the sole mistress here, I'll thank you to leave the 
house at the same time. 

Col. Much as I should like to respect your wishes. Miss Rasp, 
I'm afraid I cannot, for my business with Lord Dynevor is so press- 
ing and my interest in his welfare so profound, that neither can 
wait a moment longer than that in which His Lordship returns with 
his beautiful bride. 

Rasp. Oh, very well ; but I'll deprive you of the satisfaction of 
witnessing the unhappiness the sight of your face would cause them 
at the moment of their home-coming, for I'll warn His Lordship 
that you are here, and then I expect your patience will be well used 
up before you catch a glimpse of them. 

Col. Miss Rasp, my patience is inexhaustible. 



18 



Rasp. And so is your impertinence. {Going C.) 

Col. Oh, go to the deuce ! 

Rasp. And you go to the d — Oh ! (Screams.) Ugh ! {Exit) 

Col. A fine specimen of the genus termagant, that. The servants 
evidently run riot over this establishment. Shall I wait here till 
they come, or — I know the house from top to bottom. It would be 
a good joke to sell that old she-dragon. I will — I'll wander through 
the corridors and choose my own time. Ah! it was a bad day for 
you, Lady Sybil, when you rejected my love; a worse for you. Lord 
Dynevor, when you struck that blow ; but the worst hour for you 
both is yet to come before I leave this house today. {Exit) 

Enter River, and Sadie. (Evening Dinner Dress.) 

River, We're evidently in advance of time. 

Sadie. Yes, arrival of first happy couple too soon to meet second 
happy couple. Never mind, dinner isn't till 7, so we can amuse 
ourselves till then. 

River. How ? 

Sadie. I don't know. 

River. Talk ? 

Sadie. No. 

River. What then ? 

Sadie. Spoon. 

River. Ah, I thought you used to vote that institution a bore. 

Sadie. Oh, that was six months ago, before we were married. 
( Toying with his face.) 

River So matrimony has converted you and you prefer five 
minutes' connubiality to a Vanity Fair, or even a pick-me-up at Del- 
monico's V 

Sadie. Much. {Kisses him) That's the best pick-me-up I know 
of, and just to fancy, we've had six months of it already. 

River. And we're not tired yet. 

Sadie. I've been Lady Sadie Riverdale 26 weeks. 

River. And how do you like it as far as you've got ? 

Sadie. Um — fairly, tho' it was a great responsibility I took upon 
myself, for I find a husband is a terrible weight upon a woman's 
hands. 

River. A terrible weight ? 

Sadie. Why, yes, of course ; don't I have to watch you as tho' I 
were a hen and you a chicken, to see you don't catch cold or croup; 
or get run over, or some other dreadful thing ? 

River. It's something for you to do. Without these little domes- 
tic duties, time would hang heavily on your hands. 

Sadie. Time, time's an old thief, he's stolen away half the hours 
of the day from us ever since we left the church, I've only lived 3 
months in all the hundred and eighty -two days. 

River. At that rate then, you'll die long before your time. 

Sadie. Unless I should become a widow, and then 

River. And then ? 

Sadie. Oh, don't be a goose. 

River. No, don't let's either of us be gooses. 

Sadie. {Toying -with his face) Arthur, I guess you ain't a bit 
sweet, real, right down matter of fact sweet. 

River. Ain't I ? 

Sadie. I wonder whether they are as happy as we ? 



19 

River. Well, to judge by their letters, I should say, connubial 
felicity is not with us, altogether a New York elevated railroad. 

Sadie. A New York elevated railroad V 

River. Yes, an absolute monopoly. 

Sadie. No, for Sybil says Douglas is just the truest, noblest man 
that ever lived 

River. Ah, she views him thro' a love-tinted telescope, but, for 
all that, Dynevor, take him altogether, is as decent a man as I ever 
knew. 

Sadie. Decent, he's just as good as they make 'em. 

River. I say Sadie, I shall be jealous. 

Sadie. Oh you needn't be, for there was another of the same 
pattern turned out of nature's workshop at about the same lime, 
and that was you. I knew you were an average sort of a fellow long 
ago, the old widow woman told me so, you know. 

River. My thanks to the widdy. 

Sadie. Oh, yes, and I've found out, too, that, an Englishman may 
have a title, and not necessarily be a snob, after all. 

River. Thanks to your penetration this time. 

Sadie. Oh, I mean like Col. Osborne, that soldier, or blackleg, 
or whatever he is. Just fancy, if poor Sybil had had the misfor- 
tune to be his wife, why, she would have died before this of 
sheer mortification. Do you know, when Douglas knocked him 
down that time, I could have kissed him 

River. What, Osborne? 

Sadie. No, Dynevor of course. Only it wouldn't have been 
proper, not " the thing " you know. 

River. Not exactly. 

Sadie. Well, virtue is it's own reward, he will reoeive it in 
Heaven. 

River. That's where he's been for the past 6 months. 

Sadie. What a pity he should be coming back to earth so soon, 
this very day. 

River. And that we've returned before him. 

Sadie. Oh, never fear I mean to turn earth into Heaven, if 
you'll only let me. 

River. Let you ! I will do more, I will assist you with such in- 
dustry that you shall think the millenium has arrived. 

Sadie. No, it's too soon for that, the yankees ain't ready for it, 
but we can show each other that altho' our forefathers under George 
and Washington, had some little differences a hundred years ago, 
we their children, have benefited by their experience. 

River. And are reaping the harvest of which they sowed the 
seeds, which have been nourished by a century of better under- 
standing. 

Sadie. And have ripened at last into an affection that shall be as 
lasting and eternal as the destiny of the two great English speaking 
nations. 

River. Represented in this instance by myself as The Royal 
Standard, and you as 

Sadie. The Stars and Stripes. Let's furl our banners. 

River. We will. {Embrace and exit.) 

Enter Dynevor and Lady Sybil. 

Dyn. Home at last, my darling, home at last. 

Sybil. I'm so glad, so delighted. I almost feel as if I could cry. 



20 



Dyn. Cry, wife ? 

Sybil. All! we foolish women often express our happiness in 
tears. They are a necessary part of our existence. 

Dyn. Are they! 

Sybil. Yes, you great strong men have so many ways of liberating 
your exuberances 

Dyn. But when my tender little wife is surcharged with happi- 
ness, she opens her beautiful eyes, the floodgates of her heart, and 
lets her joy flow from them in crystal drops as pure and lovely as 
her soul. 

Sybil. I have not deserved to be so happy. 

Dyn. You have deserved to be what, if I can make you so, you 
shall be, the happiest little wife that ever lived. 

Sybil I am, I am so, now. 

Dyn. Pray heaven no cloud may ever darken the clear serenity 
of your life. 

Sybil. Oh, that would be expecting too much; beside, shining 
days are made so much the brighter by comparison with the clouded 
ones. 

Dyn. Maybe so; still, in the past six months, our days have been 
so very bright that I have begun to think our life might always^ be 
as clear and fair as those soft Italian skies we have just left behind 
us. 

Sybil. Six months. Just fancy, I have been your wife for a 
whole half year What a niggard Old Time is of his favors. It 
seems as tho' he had only given us half that space. 

Dyn. So quickly does he steal our hours of joy; so slowly does 
he drag his way before us in our days of sorrow. {Sighs.) 

Sybil. Oh, Douglas, what a sad speech. There's a cloud, you see, 
already. Ah! I know what brought it; my tears, Now, come; 
admit it was my tears and I will never cry again. 

Dyn. No, my darling, it was only a jDassing thought. 

Sybil. Of an old, unpleasant memory ? 

Dyn. Memory is a blank when I am by your side. 

Sybil. That's a very pretty speech, but I am not such a little 
stupid as to think my presence will always exorcise it; so, as I 
must share your pains as well as joys, let me begin at once. What 
were you thinking? I will know. Now, come, you were think- 
ing— 

Dyn. How kind and thoughtful it was of you to refuse to go to 
Paris where, so many bitter moments of my life were spent. 

Sybil. Oh! What a saint you make of me. You must leave that 
off", now that we are come home and are going to be an ordinary 
every-day couple, like the rest of the married people. You must 
take me down from that lofty pedestal you have had me perched 
upon for the last six months, and from this day forth — 

Dyn. Keep you in my arms. 

Sybil. Yes, in your dear embrace. 

Dyn. {Embracing her.) Which shall forever be your sanctu 
ary. 

Sybil. My home of homes. 

Dyn. Sybil, forgive me, if I cause you a moment's pain, but 
I have a terrible presentiment. 

Sybil. Presentiment ? 

Dyn. That our happiness is too great to last. 



21 

Sybil. No, no, husband; don't speak like that; you make me 
tremble. What should happen? What could possibly arise to 
throw even a shadow actpss our lives ? 

Dyn. I cannot tell, but it seems to me, I know you will think 
me foolish ; it seems to me, as tho' there were some where in 
this house, that is to be our home— the darkness of some evil 
presence which may at any moment cast its blight on you and 
me. 

Sybil. Oh, Douglas, shake this feeling off ; it is positively wicked 
to harbor such dark forebodings on the very day of our return; 
besides, let come what may, what grief or sorrow, what shock or 
pain, shall I not be always by your side ? Trust me ; you will find 
me no fair weather friend alone, but one who will stand closest 
when the clouds of trouble loom the blackest. For then, my 
great love shall envelope you around as with an armor, defying 
the worst that fate can do. 

Dy7i. My life! my soul! I shall never be worthy such a wife 
as you. 

Sybil. Ah ! I'm on the pedestal again. Don't, don't put me up 
there so high, but keep me here, here next your heart forever. 
{Nestling to his heart.) Come, there, the dark shadow has passed 
away. 

Enter Colonel Osborne. 

Byn. {Rising, turns and sees him.) No; I knew it was about 
me, and there it stands. {Pointing to Mm.) 

Sybil. Colonel Osborne! {Picture.) 

Col. Lady Dynevor ! may I be allowed to congratulate you on 
your happy return! {Offering hand.) 

Dyn. Lady Dynevor is about retiring to her room. You will ex- 
cuse her. {Leads her off.) {Turns angrily ) What do you want ? 

Col. That's scarcely the way to greet an old chum. 

Dyn. Col. Osborne, if you have no actual business with me, 
you will excuse my joining Lady Dynevor. 

Col. Plenty of time for her ; she can wait, and perhaps when 
my business with you is concluded, she will want to be excused 
from joining you. 

Dyn. Sir Breton Osborne, the last time I saw you, you escaped 
the chastisement you richly merited, because I could not descend 
to your level in the presence of the lady who is now my wife, but 
now that we are alone, no consideration will prevent my punishing 
any insult however slight to her or me. 

Col. The last time I met you, you gave me a blow which caused 
me some inconvenience. I did not return it because I was a little 
stunned at the time from its effects, but my strongest characteristic 
is patience. I can wait. I have waited, and to-day, I am about to 
return that blow. 

Dyn. What do you mean? 

Col. When I recovered my senses that day in the woods, where 
you and your friends so kindly left me to the tender mercies of your 
menials, who by the way, have lost no opportunity of insulting me, 
I swore that I would never rest until I had returned the shame you 
put upon me with interest a thousand fold. Lord Douglas Dynevor, 
I have never violated an oath. You will find I have kept this one 
sacred. 



22 

Dyn. Colonel Osborne, if you do not at once leave my house, I 
will call the menials you speak of to assist your departure. 

Col. Don't trouble them on my account. Just as soon as my 
business is completed I will go. I chose this day for carrying out 
my oath because I surmised, and, as it seems, correctly, that the apex 
of your married happiness would be reached at the moment of your 
coming home. I congratulate you from my heart upon your felicity, 
and as, in the true nobility of your soul, I know you have not a sin- 
gle joy you would not share with your wife, I take this supreme 
moment of your life to restore her to you. 

Dyn. What ! 

Col. {Going to door and bringing on Margaret Kilsyth^ Allow me 
to present you to Lady Douglas Dynevor, nee Margaret Kilsyth ! 

Dyn. God of Heaven ! My wife ! ! 

Col. Yes, the other is your mistress ! ! ! 

Dyn. {Goes to strike Col., tvko faces him exulting ly; then., after pause^ 
as tho' his strength had left him., he staggers and falls -with a cry to the 
sofa I) 

Col. Tou hit me on the body ! / have struck you to the soul ! ! 
{Exit) 

{A long patise, during xvhich Margaret seats herself with the utmost 
nonchalence.) 

Dyn. Oh, Sybil ! Sybil ! my poor innocent Sybil ! What shall we 
do? What shall we do? {Rises furiously.) And can it be you? 
{Pause.) Come here. {She moves to-ward him.) Show me your 
hands ! {She holds them out.) Your face ! {She raises it, avoiding 
his direct gaze.) Turn, turn, and if you dare, look me in the eyes. {She 
hesitates. He seizes her by the hand and ttvists her round to face him) 
If you are she whom I made my wife, let my tortured soul receive 
assurance of the truth. Look me in the eyes. {She does so -with a 
great effort^ then stares defiance at hijn.) Now let me hear your 
voice. 

Marg Listen to it, and let its tones sink deep into your heart. 

Dyn. They do, they do ! They burn like hot irons into my brain. 
But stay, I have received a shock ; perhaps the chaos that is here 
{touching temfle) is but its natural eifect, and for the moment dulls 
my vision and distorts my sense of hearing. Maybe I am but wick- 
edly deceived. 

Marg. Lay not that flattering unction to your soul. 

Dyn. {Pause.) What is your name ? 

Marg. Margaret Dynevor. 

Dyn. What are you ? 

Marg. Your lawful and only wife. 

Dy7i. Where did I first meet you ? • 

Marg. At the Corinthian, in Calcutta. 

Dyn. In what place did I marry you ? 

Marg, In the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris. 

Dyn. Do you know aught else but this which you speak of with 
such parrot-like facility which can convince me that the woman I 
made my wife in Paris is not now six feet beneath the ground in 
the Cemetery of Pere la. Chaise ? 

Marg. Force me into a court of law to prove it, you shall be 
convinced. 

Dyn. Why, do I speak as tho' I believed your wretched story ? 
You talk of proof so glibly. Prove to me that you are what you 
say you are, my wife ! 



23 

Marg. Look at my face. 

Dyn. I will. {Does so.) 

Marg. Search deep ; read it thro' and thro'. 

Dyn I do. 

Marg. What have you read ? 

Dyn. Heaven help me. I do not know. 

Marg. Then I will tell you. You have read in the features 
of my face the conviction which I see has settled on your own; 
that the true Lady Douglas Dynevor has come home. 

Dyn. It is impossible. I have seen the certificate of her death, 
given at the inquest at the Paris morgue. 

Marg. Ha! ha! ha! The authorities of the gay city made a 
trifling error. The autopsy you speak of was held on the body of 
my poor foolish cousin. 

Dyn. Cousin ? 

Marg. Who had the misfortune to die suddenly in Madame 
Celestine's gambling hell, in the Rue Garonne. 

Dyn. But it was her name, Margaret Kilsyth. 

Marg. Yes, I know; the coincidence is an extraordinary one, 
but it is easily explained. My mother was one of twins, who, 
strangely enough, married two brothers on the same day. Both 
bore children within a week of each other. Both infants were 
baptized Margaret, and of course, Kilsyth. 

Dyn. You never told me this. 

Marg. No; in the first days your passion so bliaded you that 
during our honeymoon, which, by the way, 1 sted only six weeks 
and not six months, and after that, your rage, that you would 
not hear any reference to my antecedents. Do I not speak the 
truth ? 

Dyn. Alas! you do. 

Marg. Then are you now convinced V 

Dyn. No. My brain must be refusing me its function, and I 
believe that I am going mad. {Takes stage ) 

Marg. {Sits. ) That's a very pretty artifice, but it won't improve 
your position; for even if you become a lunatic, my dear husband, 
my position and the benefits accruing from it, will be in no way 
affected. 

Dyn. Then you have come to me for money ? 

Marg. Not that alone. Oh, no. I have come to IJv j with you 
again. 

Dyn. What! {Like a tiger.) 

Marg. {Coolly.) Oh, yes. I can see you are just as amiable 
as ever. The animal within you is as unsubdued as when it 
tried to wreak its savagent ss on me; but I am no longer terrifii d at 
it, as I used to be ; on the contrary, it amuses me ; in fact, I came 
prepared for the worst. You see, I have brought with me t'le 
modern lady's companion, my old revolver. You may rememb r it. 
{Producing it.) 

Dyn. Oh, Sybil, my wife, my queen ! How can I save you from 
the clutches of this human monster ? 

Marg. Oh, don't distress yourself about Lady Sj^bil Riverdale; 
the poor dear girl, I've been told, has the most exalted notions of 
justice, and all that sort of thing, and she will realize at once that 
she cannot longer remain beneath the roof of your wife. Of course, 
she'll look at the matter as I should, or any sensible woman would, 
and make the best of it ; if not, why — 



24 



Dyn, Silence ! 

Marg. But my dear Douglas — she — 

Dyn Not oue word more. I will not suffer the holy purity of 
her soul to be sullied even by the breath of such a one as you. 

Marg. Purity of soul in an English noble's mistress? 

Dyn. {Rushes frantically toivards her as tho' to strangle her) 

Marg. {Raise's pistol coolly and covers him) (Picture!) Ha! Ha! 
Ha ! Now come, be reasonable, what is the use of our going over 
the same old ground. Why, this reminds me of the halcyon days 
of our early married life in Paris. 

Dyn. {Recovering after a pause.) I gave you money and you 
promised you would never trouble me again. 

Marg. A promise is easily made, and for the money that was 
just as easily spent. It was a large sum, too ; it has taken me four 
years to circulate it ; you have have had four years of genuine lib- 
erty; you have'nt so much to grumble at, after all. 

Dyn. Will money relieve me of your presence now? 

Marg. No. 

Dyn. Not another heavy sum ? 

Marg. Not the accumulated proceeds of your family estates. 

Dyn. What, then, do you want? 

Marg. Kestitution. 

Dyn. Aye, for the shame you have heaped on me. 

Marg. Restitution of the title that is mine by right, and the con- 
sideration that is due me as your wife. 

Dyn. And what is to become of herf 

Marg. What do I care about her. 

Dyn. Have you no heart at all ? 

Marg. I have an organ that serves me usefully in it's place, as 
the circulator of my blood. 

Dyn. And does the terrible suffering that will fill the remainder 
of her life arouse it to no spark of pity ? 

Marg. No, I don't recognize my heart in any other capacity 
than that which I have mentioned. 

Dyn. { With clenched teeth) Then what do you intend to do ? 

Marg. To stay here, and when she comes, to tell her who and 
what I am. 

Dyn. No, no, no, you could not do it, if you would, for the sake 
of mercy take up your pistol and lay me dead. No, I cannot be- 
lieve you are so utterly inhuman. She must be spared the knowl- 
edge of the shame I have innocently brought upon her. Recall the 
days of your girlhood, the hours when you were free of harm, be- 
fore the wickedness of the world had eaten into your young life 
and corroded it's simple nature. Gi-o back in memory to those days 
when suffering insured your sympathy and pain your pity, when 
the purest of your joys were gained in comforting those whose 
weakness robbed them of the power to help themselves. Such 
scenes as these do come into every life ; they must have lived in 
your's; then, let the heavenly memory of them spread their incense 
once again around your better self and soften it to some little pity 
for her who has never laid herself to sleep without first wafting a 
prayer to Heaven for the salvation of such unhappy ones as you 
and me. 

Marg. {Softening) Do you know me so little as to fancy you 
can cheat me from my rights and purpose with mere words ? You 
cannot move me. 



25 



Dyn. I can, I will, unless your heart be made of steel. She i 
so innocent of evil, so weak and trusting, a mere babe in this wil' 
derness of guilt from which both you and I have borne so much. 
Could you, can you destroy so chaste a being at a blow, and con- 
demn her to the unspeakable shame of thinking she has been no 
better than a roue's plaything ? She has never harmed you, see, on 
my knees {kneels) I implore you to go away, to let your lips be 
sealed to her, so that she may remain, at least in her own, and in the 
world's esteem, an honorable woman. I ask no jot of mercy for 
myself, wreak the worst vengeance on my head your spite can 
fashion, but, oh, have compassion upon her, as you hope for pity 
from him who will call both you and I to an account for our miser- 
able misdeeds. 

Marg. ( Wiping tears) Yes, I'll go, for I'm not all bad after all. 

Enter Col. (who watches.) 

And if you ever learn the truth, you will know that circumstances 
sometimes compel even such an one as I to seem more cursed 
than I am. Good Bye. 

Dyn. Good Bye, I will make you rich again. Call at my 
banker's and you will find your goodness has been well repaid. 

Marg. {Dashing a tear doggedly away, then in previous callous 
manner) Let it be a good round sum, for society does make such 
heavy demands on we ladies, now a days. 

Dyn. Never fear, but go now, for she might come and see you. 

Marg. Good Bye, Douglas. 

Dyn. '{Going doivn) Good bye, and Heaven reward you. {Falls 
in chair?) 

Col. {To Marg) You are a weak fool. 

Marg. I will go no further. 

Col. You will do what I command you. 

Marg. I will not. 

Col. You shall. {Drags her of C.) 

Dyn Risi7tg) I must be accursed, but what matters for myself, 
she must be saved from the frightful consequences of my folly and 
disgrac'\ No time to waste in idle lamentation for a dead past, for 
she must be kept unspotted from the world. I cannot tell her the 
truth, and she must never learn it from any other lips. What shall 
I do, what shall I do ? 

Enter River, and Sadie, announced by Adolph. 

Adolph. Lord and Lady Riverdale. 

River. {Shaking hands with him) Ah, Dynevor, I'm delighted 
to see you again. 

Sadie, {Shaking hands) And so am I, real glad. 

Adolph Well, when an English nobleman marries a yankee 
lumber store, things is come to a pretty pass, the foundations of 
society is shook. What's to become of us gentlemen. I must 
speak to his lordship about it. {Exit.) 

Sadie. And where 's Sybil, the pet. 

Dyn. You will find her in her room. 

Sadie. Oh, I must go and hug her right away. {Exit.) 

River. Douglas, old boy, what's the meaning of this long face ? 
Why, I expected to find you wreathed in happy smiles. 

Dyn. Riverdale, an hour ago I was the happiest man in Great 
Britain. Now, I am more miserable than the lowest wretch that 
crawls. 

River. What has happened ? 



26 



Dy7t. I cannot tell you, old man, I cannot tell you. 
River. Has my sister, Sybil — 

Dyn. Your sister, Arthur, is the noblest woman that' ever 
breathed. 

Enter Sadie and Sybil. 

Sadie. There, do you hear that ? You ought to be proud and 
happy. 

Sybil. I am the proudest, happiest woman in the world. {Em- 
bracing Dyn.) 

Re-Enter Col. 

Col. I am delighted to hear it. 

Omnes. Colonel Osborne ! 

Col. And a friend ; I will introduce her. 

Dyn. No. no; for your soul's sake, man, have mercy! 

Col. Mercy ! Is it mercy to allow an English lady to suppose she 
is a Noble's wife, when she is nothing but his light o' love ? 

Omnes. What ! 

Col. Lady Sybil, some months ago I warned you that you would 
be Lord Dynevor's second victim, and that he would break your 
heart. I spoke the truth. He has deceived you ; he has cheated us 
all, his first wife never died! 

Omnes. Not dead ! 

Col. No, {fetching on Marg.) for Lady Douglas Dynevor now 
stands before you ! 

Sybil. { To Dyn.) Is this true ? 

Dyn. God help you, Sybil, for it is. 

Col. Now, Douglas Dynevor, I have paid you, shame for shame! 

{Dyn. is about to rush on Colonel, when Sybil, ivho has been standing 
dazed.^ screams and falls to the ground between them. 

Act. 



ACT III. 



Same scene as Act II. 
Enter Adolphus, L, 1 E., yawning, goes towards C. 

Adolf h. I must have overslept myself. Well, it's no wonder I 
should have been fatigued, for the shock that old feminine gave me 
quite upset my nerves. {Is no-w at C.) 

Enter C. Miss Rasp, very hurriedly, cannons against him. 

Rasf. Oh, there you are, you booby ! Where have you been all 
this lime. Eh? Eh?? Eh??? 

Adolph. If you'll give me time to collect myself, I'll endeavor to 
tell you. 

Rasp. Endeavor to tell me, you useless nincompoop ! 

Adolph. Useless ? 

Rasp. Yes, useless, and the best proof of your utter uselessness 
is, that you have'nt been missed. 

Adotph. Missed, from where ? 



2T 

Rasp. Why, from tlie house, while it has been turned topsy* 
turvy, and while her Ladyship has been stretched in a fainting fit 
that it has taken us an hour to bring her out of. 

Adolph. Her Ladyship! A fainting fit. What has been the mat- 
ter, then? 

Rasp. How should I know ? They never tell me anything here. 
The house might fall on top of me and I should never be told a 
word about it. 

Adolph. But is Her Ladyship ill now? 

Rasp. Ill now ? You would'nt expect her to be out on horseback 
in the Row two hours after receiving a shock ihat must have nearly' 
killed her. 

Adolph. Shock! Oh, do tell me all about it; it's a shame to keep 
a gentleman in suspense. 

Rasp. Gentleman! Yes, just about as much of a gentleman as 
that one that's been here ever since they came home, and bringing 
strange women into the house, too. It's my belief he's at the bot- 
tom of all this trouble. He's vile enough for anything. He's got 
" bad lot " written all over his ugly face. 
Adolph. Of whom are you speaking? 

Rasp. Why, of Sir Corporal Osborne, of couise. He always was 

pushing himself in where he wasn t wanted. What business had 

he here the very day they were to come home from their honeymoon V 

I knew the sight of him would make Lady Sybil ill. I told him so. 

Adolph. Is'he gone now ? 

Rasp. No, he is not, and it seems nothing short of the great Lis- 
bon earthquake would make him go. He's sitting in the library, 
but he's got himself for company and that horrid woman, and he's 
told Bings that they're going to stop there till their Lordships sends 
for them. 
Adolph. You ^astonish me. 

Rasp. I don't wonder, but wha^ am I standing here chattering 
like a magpie for with Her Ladyship only just getting well again, 
and perhaps wanting me all the time, for she won't let any of' those 
foolish waiting maids do a hand's turn for her. Ah. I don't know 
what they'd do without me in this house, for I declare, I'm the life, 
the prop and the support of the whole building. {Exit talking) 

Adolph. What's my noble Colonel's game now, I won ei? And 
why hasn't he kept me informed! Is he in for more shenanekin 
with other people's paper, or is it some new scheme connected with 
this strange woman he has brought into the house to-day ? Well, 
whichever it is, he musn't keep me in the dark. I'll go to the li- 
brary — and — {is goins, C ) 

Enter Col. C. 

Oh, here you are; I was just coming to look you up. 

Col. What for? 

Adolph. Because it seems to me that I don't receive that share 
of your confidence which is due from one gentleman to another. 

Col. One gentleman to another; please don't place yourself on a 
level with me. 

Adolph. Oh, no; don't flatter yourself that I do, for altho' we're 
neither of us what could be strictly called chaste, upright, virtuous 
or honest, yet there are degrees even in rascality. I'm a rogue, I 
admit it ; but you are— 



28 

Cot. Well, what am I ? 

Adolph. A damn scoundrel ! 

Col. ( Threatening.) Take care, you affected puppy. 

Adolph. Oh! I'm not afraid; I may have a weak voice, but I've 
got a magnificent muscle. 

Col. Well, well, what do you want ? 

Adolph* I want to know what's the new game you're playing ? 

Lol. One in which you can't take a hand. 

Adolph. Ah! That's from your point of view, but I look at 
matters in such a different light. 

Col. Well, this is no place to tell you anything about it. These 
walls may have ears; but this much you may know: tbat I'm going 
to do a stroke to-night that will make my fortune. 

Adolph. And mine as well of course. 

Col. We'll settle that when the work is done. 

Adolph. All right; and now about those cheques. You're quite 
sure we're all safe with them ? 

Col. Oh, yes, at any rate, nothing can be discovered to-day and 
to-morrow I shall be beyond danger, on the ocean. 

Adolph. Oh, you will ; then I shall take my ticket too. 

Col. That we can arrange hereafter. 

Adolph . But suppose he should find out to-day ? 

Col. Oh, no fear of that. 

Adolph. Don't be too sure ; there's been five in all for a thousand 
each. I cashed the last this very day for the thou. I gave you, and 
I tell you, the clerk looked at me as if he would eat me and com- 
pared the signature with others for so long that I thought of making 
a bolt from the bank several times. 

Col. You are always so confoundedly timid; that's what spoils 
you. Some day, you'Jl get into a mess, and if you do, after all the 
warnings I've given you, you'll have to get out of it yourself, as best 
you can. 

Adolph. You always seem to overlook the fact that any trouble 1 
get into will involve you as well. 

Col. Oh, I can take care of myself; never fear. I have number- 
less ways of getting out of a difficulty. 

Adolph. So had the fox with a hundred tricks, but he got caught 
at last. 

Col. You're too big a goose to catch this fox. 

Adolph. Oh, no ; for I don't require the intelligence, evtn of a 
goose, to do it. 

Col. What ? 

Adolph. The fox in this case has prepared his own trap. 

Col. His own trap ? 

Adol. Yes, goose as I am, I could make you sentence yourself to 
7 years without your once opening your lips. 

Col. What do you mean ? 

Adol. I mean that I've got a letter of yours addressed to me from 
Paris, where you have been so busy for the last 6 months, in which 
you give yourself away entirely 

Col. Hang you, so you have. I must have been drunk when I 
wrote it. Where do you keep it ? 

Adol. It never leaves this pocket. ( Tapping his breast^ 

Col. What will you take for it? I'll give you £1,000. 

Adol. Ten thousand couldn't make it yours, for it's the only thing 
I have to keep you in your place. As long as I hold that letter I am 
the master and you — the man. 



29 

Col ( Taking his arm.) Ah, well, my dear Adolphus, there'll 
never be any misunderstanding between us ; we know each other 
so well. 

Adol. {Disengaging his arm and wiping his sleeve.) No liberties, 
please, and pray don't place yourself on a level with me. 

Enter Marg. 

Marg. I must speak to you, alone. 

Col. {To Add.) You hear? Alone. 

Adol. Who is this person '? 

Col. A friend of mine, of ours; now go, there's a good fellow; 
I'll meet you to-night at the King's Head, as usual, and explain 
everything. 

Adol. All right, only play me no tricks ; because, if you do, re- 
member what I have here, {tapping his breast) and I shall have to 
speak to His Lordship about it. 

Marg. What is that man to you ? 

Col. A very useful person in his place. He has done us both 
good service, for it is through him that I have obtained the money 
necessary to establish j'^ou in your rights. 

Marg. Colonel Osborne, an end to my rights. I renounce them, 
and I will go no further with you. 

Gol. Hey dey ! what's the matter now ? 

Marg. The matter is that that poor lady's agony has aroused 
what little of the woman there is left in me, and 1 will torture her 
no more. 

Gol. So you've got an attack of qualms, I suppose ? 

Marg. I have, and I only hope they have not come too late. I 
promised Lord Dynevor two hours ago that I would leave him in 
peace. He will give me money to be rid of me. He should have 
been so by now but for your remorseless power over me. 

Gol. Give you money, and what about me who haven't a shilling 
in the world — that am worse than a beggar, with debts of lead 
weighing me down. I tell you, you must go on. 

Marg. Must ! 

Gol. Aye, must; if not, as surely as there is a treaty of extradi- 
tion between France and Great Britain I will restore you to the 
government which is so anxiously awaiting your return to Paris. 

Marg. Why did you follow me six months ago ? I had no wish 
to be a party to your persecution of Lord Dynevor. Had you left 
me to myself when I returned to Paris, I should have been a better 
woman. 

Col. You're very ungrateful to one who has induced you to make 
a fortune against your will. 

Marg. And so you will have no mercy? 

Col. Just as much mercy as you had for me when I was cheated 
out of my last franc in your gambling hell, in the Rue Garonne. 
Just as much mercy as you had for that poor wretch who on the 
night of the 13th of January was drugged in your saloon, robbed 
and afterwards pitch* d into the winter snow. I heard of no qualms 
then from the English adventuress, and I'll hear of none now. If I 
do I will introduce you in 24 hours to the prefect of the Seine. 

Marg. You have me tightly in your grip, but, if ever I free my- 
self, from that moment beware. 

Col. But till that moment, you will kindly conduct yourself as 
becomes a person of your rank. I have arranged a meeting in this 
room, to discuss your interests, at nine o'clock, {watch) It wants 



30 

only a few minutes. I will conduct you back to the library, where 
you will please stop till I rejoin you with an account of what has 
taken place. Come. {She follows him off doggedly)) 

Enter Adolph, L. 1 E. (with letter, and an envelope, he looks 

off entrances very cautiously and returns to C. 

speaking thro' action. 

I managed to overhaul the mail as usual, but there was nothing 
that looked important except this with a Paris post mark. It looks 
like what I remember of the handwriting of that old French fool, 
Count Fritout, who disappeared so suddenly, by the way, the very 
same day as that woman who is here to-day turned up. That's 
funny. The colonel's orders were to investigate everything foreign 
that comes to hand, so here goes, {reads) 
Moncher^ mi Lord Dynevor: 

No doubt you ate surprise at that I have absentee mineself from 
you so suddeness after ze lunch in ze woods 6 months ago, but I vas 
receive un grand fright from a voman I see zere zat day, vich make 
me run off to Paris Cependant, I shall have ze plaisir detre chez 
vous to-morow, le de?}iain, when I vil explain everysing, meantime I 
am, d^c. 

Leon Bonaparte Fritout. 

{As soon as Adolph begins to read this letter Bings enters C. and 
cautiously advancing, looks over AdolpKs shoulder while he is reading 
Adolph turns, and seeing Bings, hastily, and in great confusion places 
letter in envelope, and then in his breast poeket.) {Aside.) He saw 
me. {Aloud.) Ah, Mr. Bings. {Going L) 

Bings. What right had you to open that letter ? 

Adol. Me, open a letter, me! {Loudly.) 

Bings. See, yes I did see you reading a letter addressed to 
your master. 

Adol. My dear Mr. Bings, you surely must be dreaming. 

Bings. I can't hear what you're saying, but I'll thank you to 
hand it over to me at once. 

Adol. But my dear Mr. Bings, you are mistaken. 

Bings. You won't have it talien? Oh, then I'll call for assis- 
tance and have you searched. 

Adol. What an indignity to put upon a gentleman. 

Bings. I always thought you were a fraud, with your slow 
talk and your poller back, and now, I'm sure. How did you come 
by that letter which was in my mail bag ? 

Adolph. The postman left it with me. 

Bings. I can't hear you, but I can see you're lying. So I'll 
give you one minute before I pull this bell, to hand me that letter, 
or to have you and your boxes searched and both bundled into the 
street ; now choose, {holding watch and bell pull.) 

Adolph. The confounded thing is as open as when I steamed it, 
he came on me so quickly, I hadn't time to seal it up again as I 
have always done before. 

Bings. {Consulting his watch) You have only 30 seconds left. 

Adolph. Well, I must put a bold face on it. There it is. {hands it 
to Bings, having taken two letters from his pocket and become very 
confused in handling thetji, gives Bings first one and then the other, 
etc) I opened it, by mistake. 



31 



Bings. {Putting it into his pocket without looking at it.) Makes 
you shake ; so it" ought and now, I'm going to shake you off 
altogether. Your services in this family are dispensed with from 
to-day. 

Adolph. Vulgar old idiot! {Going up.) If I could make him 
hear, I would give him a bit of my mind, but a gentleman can't 
bawl at an old ass like that. 

Bings. Now pack up, and get out as soon as you can. 

Adolph. I'm going, and I'm pleased to be released from your 
society. 

Bings. No more chatter, you starched-up hypocrite, but go. 

Adolph. Disgusting! But by jove, what shall I do? It isn't 
possible to let him turn me out. The Colonel has too much 
at stake, and so have I. I must get taken back. Mr. Bings! 

Bings. I want nothing more to say to you. 

Adolph. But I want to explain to you about the letter. 

Bings. You'll behave better ; I don't believe it ; get out. 

Adolph. But you must hear me, or you'll be sorry. 

Bins^s. You're sorry ? No apologies, but go. 

Adolph. But I. 

'Bings. Oh, go to the devil ! {Scrufs and kicks him of.) 

Enter Colonel, from D. R. 

Sadie and River, from L. 1. E. 

Dynevor, from D. L. 

Col. We are punctual, temps militaire, 9 precisely. 

Dyn. Is Sybil, I mean, is her Ladyship recovered? 

River. I do not see tliat my sister's condition can interest you, 
sir, after what has happened. 

Sadie. {Reproachfully., Oh, Arthur! {To Dyn.) No; but she ii 
not so prostrate as she was. What she seems to wish for most, is to 
be able to leave this house, where, she says, she is suffocating. 

Dyn. Poor girl! Poor girl! For what have I brought you 
home? unhappy that I am. 

Col. I do not wonder Lady Sybil should be impatient to quit 
a place where she has been so brutally insulted. 

Dyn. When your sympathy is required, sir, for Lady Sybil, you 
shall be informed ; till then, you degrade her by the offer of it. 

Col, It is safe to suppose she is feeling something like the 
degradation you put upon me in her presence six months ago. / 
loved her sir, as well as you. 

Dyn. Peace ! Your hollow protestations at such a moment are 
blasphemies of which only such a one as you could be guilty. 

Sadie. What has she ever done to you that — 

Col. I tell you ; I loved her ; she trampled on my passion. Even 
when I warned her of the fate this man has reduced ber to, she 
treated me with scorn, rushing to his false embrace without a mo- 
ment of remorse for dooming me to an eternity of misery. 

Sadie. She could not force herself to love you 

Col. It was enough that I loved her. She cast me off, and I 
swore to be revenged on her and on him who stole her from me, 

Dyn. And is not your vengeance yet complete ? Has it not been 
foul enough to bring satiety ? 



32 



Col. When the world knows botli she and you for what you are , 
and when your names have been dragged thro' the gutters of 
society, then, and not till then, will your punishment have been 
complete. 

Sadie. Kow, we'll baulk you of your vile gratification, for we will 
take her to the old home where I was born, where not a soul shall 
ever see the shame and suffering she will endure. 

Col. Yes, take her to your lumber tract in the far West, and you 
shall read her story in the local journal on the very day of her ar- 
rival, and the finger of scorn shall be ready, waiting to mark her 
out as surely as tho' she were in the heart of the metropolis. 

Sadie. What is to be done with this man ? If he were in the 
lumber region of the West, I'd know how to deal with him. 

Col. Indeed. How ! 

Sadie. Why, I'd get the vigilantes to give you twenty-four hours 
to quit, and if you wer'nt gone at the end of that time — 

Col. Well ? 

Sadie. Why, then all the honest men of the district would help 
you out with a cowhide or a bit of a snake fence. 

Dyn. 'Tis useless to argue with a stone, but if you have one 
spark of man left in you, let your revenge expend itself on me. 
Leave her at least in name, that which is a woman's greatest treas- 
ure. If you rob her of that, 'twere kinder far to take her life and 
all, for she would have nothing left to live for then. Oh, would to 
heaven I could be near to comfort her. It breaks my heart to be 
forbidden from her side. 

River. Lord Dynevor, after what has passed, you will excuse 
me if I regard any protestations from you as I do those from Sir 
Breton Osborne, as slightly tinged with hypocrisy. 

Dyn. Did that come from your heart, Riverdale? From you, 
who, but two short hours ago was my closest friend ? 

River. Your friend. No; I was your dupe, as was my poor 
wronged, miserable sister. 

JDyn. Riverdale, as I hope for mercy, I am innocent of wilful 
wrong towards her. 

Bi'oer. Words cost but little. 

Byn. But I will prove them. Oh, Riverdale, you have known 
me many a year; have I ever said or done anything to make you 
believe me capable of so base a wrong to one I loved better than 
my life. 

River. {Turns away in doubt.) 

Sadie. {Tiirns him round again.) Arthur! (stamps.) Lord Riv- 
erdale ! Say, what you think — 

River. I don't know what I do think. 

Sadie. Then I do. You think your old friend is just as true a 
man now as you believed him to be before this black-hearted speci- 
men of humanity crossed his threshold two hours ago. {Gives Dyn. 
her hand.) 

Dyn Thank you, thank you, for her sake, thank you. 

Sadie. {To River.) Now come, Arthur, I don't wan't to be cross 
with you for the first time, for you've a good soul, only you're so 
all-fired scared of showing it, but for once don't be ashamed to have 
the courage of your sentiments. Take him by the hand and don't 
let him feel so awful small before a mean potato-bug like that. 

River. Your impulse is a good one, Sadie, but this is not the time 
to indulge it. When Lord Dynevor has cleared himself by irrefu- 
table proof, it will be time enough for that. 



33 



Sadie. Proof, of course he will give us proof. 

Dyn. I will, I will go to France immediately and bring back the 
certificate of the death of Margaret Kilsyth, together with every 
evidence necessary to show that I made your unhappy sister my 
wife honestly believing I was a free man. 

Sadie. No need to go to France , my proof is hundreds of miles 
nearer home, it's right here in my heart, which tells me you are a 
man to be pitied and not abused. 

Col. He will never prove away the shame that will cling around 
his victim to the last hour of her life. But wliat does he care? 
Has he not gratified his passion V My appearance with his wife 
has only hastened your sister's fall by a few weeks, for when he 
had tired of her as well, she would have been cast off as Lady Dy- 
nevor was, while he went in search of still more food to glut his 
insatiable appetite. 

Dyn. Lord Riverdale, am I dreaming? Am I mad? oris it a 
fact that I, Douglas Dynevor, am standing here inactive, with you 
and your wife by my side, allowing that man to insult me as tho' 
I were the lowest wretch upon the earth? I must have fallen, in- 
deed, from my old self, or I should — but why do I waste time in 
useless words. I came here to act. Whatever defence I have to 
make for myself must wait until her safety is assured. Her good 
name is paramount, and it must not be sullied by a single breath of 
slander. 

Col. How will you prevent it ? 

Dyn. By closing your mouth. 

Col. You will find that a difficult task. 

Dyn. There is but one way to your heart and that is thro' your 
pocket. What is the price of your silence ? 

Col. I am not the only person to be consulted. Your wife, Lady 
Dynevor, has a tongue as well as I. 

Dyn. Leave me to deal with her. 

Col. She will have a deal to expect from your tender mercies. 
No, sir; she has constituted me the guardian of her rights, and I 
mean to see that she obtains them. 

Dyn. Then how much will ensure your joint secrecy? 

Col. Make an ofier. 

Dyn. Five thousand pounds. 

Sadie. What, $25,000? It's a wicked swindle In the States he 
wouldn't get a cent. They would let him do his worst. 

Col. Yes, I've been told that reputation is of little account in 
your country, Lady Riverdale, and that a diploma of respectability, 
like that of medicine, can be had for a mere song. 

Sadie. Oh, I admit we've some tough examples on our side, but 
in all my experience over there I never came across a man so des- 
picable as to be capable, like you, of making a few paltry dollars out 
of the misery of a helpless woman. 

River. Sadie, my dear — 

Sadie. Arthur, I can't help it. When I look at that man it sets 
my blood boiling, and if your society restrictions don't allow you to 
give him the plain English of what you feel, why I'll take care he 
remains under no delusions as to what /think about him so long as 
I can talk United States. 

Col. We should come to a quicker settlement if Lady Riverdale 
would leave us to ourselves. 



34 



Sadie. Oh, oh ; you want to turn me out, do you ? No, sir ; I'm 
fixed on this chair just as solid as a prairie-dog on liis hunkers, ai^d 
here I'm going to sticli. 

Col. Well, then, may I request that you will remain silent until 
you have something to say which is relevant to the business in 
hand. 

River. Yes, Sadie, darling, the more you talk the longer we shall 
have to put up with Ihe insult of his presence. 

Sadie. Oh, will he go any the sooner for my keeping quiet.'' 
Then I won't even open my mouth again. (Sits.) 

Col. Lord Riverdale, your last speech will cost you several thou- 
sands more than I had intended to ask you. 

Sadie. (Jumping up.) What, is he going to ask you to pay him, 
too.? Oh, I forgot! (Sits.) 

Got Immaterial who pays me, so I'm paid. 

River. Well, then, out with it; how much do you want.? 

Col. Ah, that's sensible. For insults irom Lord Dynevor, £5,000; 
for the crowning humiliation of a blow from the same individual, 
£10,000; for my expenses while in Paris looking up the true Lady 
Dynevor, and obtaining the proofs of her identity and marriage, 
£5,000; for my silence, £10,000; for Lady Dynevor's neutrality and 
forbearance, £20,000 Total to be paid before I leave the house, 
£50,000 ! 

Sadie. What! $250,000— a quarter of a million dollars! You'll 
never agree to it.? 

River. No, for we could not command such a sum of cash in 
hand. It would take some days to realize it. 

Dyn. And this is your final resolve .? Your mind is fixed.? 

Col. Irrevocably so. 

Dyn. And nothing short of such a sum would influence you.? 

Gol. Absolutely nothing. I will not take one shilling less. Pay 
it or face the consequences, which include the proclamation of Lady 
Sybil Riverdale as your mistiess, and your own arrest for bigamy. 

IJyn. And no appeal will move you from the execution of your 
dastardly purpose ? Oh, I care not for myself, the disgrace of an 
arrest I would bear with cheerfulness if it would save her from any 
suffering, but she will be dragged down with me in my shame. 
Heaven help her! Heaven help her! (Sits howed in grief.) 

Sadie. Heaven's a very good stand-by, but a little slow at times; 
so suppose, I chip in. I've a good-sized fortune in my own right, 
but I can't put my hand down on a sum like that at two minutes' 
notice, nor yet two weeks. Lord Riverdale, how much can we 
manage together ? 

River. Not more than a few thousands in actual cash. 

Sadie. Well, come here, and let's figure it out. (Takes him up.) 

Enter Bings (with Bank Book and Letters.) 

Rings. Beg pardon, my Lord, but I ventured to disturb you to 
bring in your letters. 

Dyn. Yes, put them down and go. 

Rings (Put them down all hut one.) I've often been blamed, 
my Lord, because I couldn't hear, but thank the Lord, I can see. 
Here's a letter, I advise you to read just as quickly as you can. 
(Sanding him that he got from Adol.) Oh, yes, I see I'm intrud- 
ing and I beg pardon for it, but when your Lordship has mastered 



35 

the contents of that epistle, you'll admit that tho' I may be deaf, 
yet damn me, I'm not blind. [Exit.) 

Col. I must demand that there shall be no more interuptions 
to our business. 

Dym. {Beading letter.) No; you shall have strictly business now. 

Gol. Be quick, then, for my time is precious. 

Dyn. {Gets bank book and consults it.) Are you then in a hurry 
to go? 

Col. I shall Avait until I am paid. 

Dyn. Before you leave, you shall be paid in full. 

River. Can you then raise the amount at once? 

Dyn. lam just cousultiug my account. No; I cannot give a 
check for such a sum ; it is impossible. 

Col. I will take your bill for a third of the amount. 

Dyn. Even then, I could not do it. 

River. But we can manage something very considerable, can't 
we Sadie? 

Sadie. Oh, yes. if we're obliged; not else, beside, is there no 
punishment in your country for blackmail ? 

Hiver. Oh, yes, but unfortunately, he knows he is safe. 

Sadie. Then we are entirely al this man's mercy. 

Hiver. Absolutely. 

Sadie Well, then, we must make the best of it. I'll give my 
check for £20,000. 

Biver. And I mine for £10,000. 

Col. Then make them out and be quick about it, too. {They both 
go to desk and write checks.) Now, sir, you are very much absorbed 
in study ; do you forget that you have still to dispose of me ? 

Dyn. { Very %)ointedly) I will dispose of you, at once. 

Col. Then, give me a check. 

Dyn. I am about to do so. 

Sadie. {Coming down L. of Dyn.) ' Here is mine 

River. {Following) And here is mine. {They are passing them 
to Col. across Dynevor. Col. is about to take them greedily when 
Dynevor intercepts them in his hand., and holds them away from Col. 

Dyn. One m dnent. There are certain little formalities to be 
gone thro' in all business transactions. 

Col. {With pocketbook open in his hand.) What formalities? 

Dyn. I will explain. 

Col. Do. 

Dyn. Kindly retain your money till you feel you are bound to 
pass it to the Colonel. {Returning cheques to River and Sadie.) 

Col. What is the meaning of this jugglery! 

Dyn. I am giving you a check. 

River- Be careful. Lord Douglas. My sister, Lady Sybil, is the 
stake and you are dealing with a dangerous man 

Dyn. I know it, but when I was in India I often settled several, 
serpents in a day, to say nothing of other vermin. Here I have 
only to deal with one. 

Col. By 

Dyn. D n't talk, but listen. I think if I were to offer you 
half the sum you have demanded, you should think yourself well 
paid. 

Col. I would n )ttake one penny less if you were to talk for two 
days, so hand over the money and let me go. 

|j*r:[ Here's my share. 



^e 



Dyn. {Putting them back as Col. goes to sieze the checks^ One mo- 
ment longer. You are quite sure that if you were offered a quarter 
of the amount, you would not entertain the proposition? 

Col. Not for an instant. 

Byn. Then the very lowest price of your kind forbearance 
towards Lady Sybil, her relatives and myself, is £50 000. 

Gol. It is, and if you delay the payment much longer, I shall 
raise it to £60,000. 

Sadie. Oh, then, for goodness sake let's get rid of him. Here, 
take your money. {Takes check from River and passes them both to 
Col^ br hind Dyn.) 

Col. {Having eagerly snatched them from her , put them in his pock- 
etbook^ and into his pocket ^and buttoned up his coat with enormous sat- 
isfaction) And now, sir, I'll trouble you for yours, and then — 

Byn. And then you will be satisfied that the bargain is fully 
carried out on our side ? 

Gol. Yes. 

Byn. But what guarantee have we that it will be as faithfully 
observed on yours ? 

Sadie. Oh, yes. I never thought of that. Bind him down so 
that he can't wriggle away. 

Ool. Bind me down. Ha ! ha ! I have the money, for which, 
tho', I will give you a receipt. 

Byn. And what else ? 

Gol. A guarantee in writing that I will keep silent. 

Dyn. Thanks; but as you have, as you say, the money in your 
pocket, I want a guarantee that you will not break your guarantee. 

Gol. Oh, I give you my word of honor. 

Byn. Tour word of honor ! 

Sadie. His word of honor ! It would'nt fetch a nickel at a gov- 
ernment auction of a condemned junk store. 

Gal What more can you have ? 

Byn. I will tell you. During my absence in the past six months, 
something has occurred of which I have only just been made aware. 
I was on the point of paying you a large sum of money. Before 
doing so, T deemed it wise to consult my bank book. The result 
of my examination is, I have discovered that my account at the 
London and County Bank has been drawn upon by means of forged 
cheques, and that I have been robbed of £5,000. 

Gol. Well, what do I want to know about this.? Come to busi- 
ness. 

Byn. I will. Just now you buttoned your coat up very, very 
tightly over two checks for a considerable amount.? 

Gol. I did. 

Byn. I will trouble you to unbutton and return those drafts to 
their drawers. 

Gol. What ! 

Byn. I think I used understandable English. 

Gol. Do you think I'm a fool ? 

Byn. I do, and I know you are a rogue. 

Gol. {Going for Mm.) You! 

Byn. {Very coolly.) Don't agitate yourself. You've tried those 
tactics before with very indifferent success. 

Gol. Lord Dynevor,'(«''« terrible rage) if it were not for the pres- 
ence of this lady — 

Byn. Lady ? Oh, I have no need, like you, to make use of her 
presence as a shield for villainy. 



3T 



Col. By Heaven! you shall prove your words. 

Dyn. I will. A short time ago you saw my servant bring me in 
my mail. I'm sorry to say I was vexed with the poor old man. The 
next time I see him he shall receive my apology, for among my let- 
ters was one dated from Paris, which I will read to you. (Reads 
letter.) 

" My Dear Adolphus: 

Thanks for your promptness, I received the last thousand a week ago, 
but the job I have in hand has turned out so expensively that I must 
have more money or failure may result; therefore, as you do not expect 
Dynevor home until the 18th there will be ample time for you to supply 
me icith one more check from his book in the escritoire. This loill make 
five in all, for a thousand each. Itinakes me laugh to thiick I have come 
to copy Bynevor'^s fist with such perfection that I can defy your 
master himself to recognize it from his own. Be prompt, and oblige 

Yours in haste, 

Breton Osborne, CoV 

Col. {In a fearful fury.) How did Bings become possessed of 
that? 

Enter Bings. 

Dy7i. I don't know, but here he is ; ask him for yourself. {Goes 
to desk and writes.) 

Col. {To Bings, very loudly.) From whom did you get that letter ? 

Bings. {Ear bus.) FromAd olphus. 

Col. Why did he give it you ? 

Bings. Because he had opened, by your orders, a letter addressed 
to my master from Count Fritout. I saw him do it, and when he 
saw me and saw that I saw him, he slipped it quickly in his pocket. 
I demanded it from him, and he was so excited— 

Dj/n. When he saw you and saw that you saw him — that 

Bings. He got confused, and gave me "that one in the place of 
the other. {Goes up.) 

Col. Perdition seize him! I knew his blundering would ruin 
us. Here, I'll be satisfied with what I've got and go. 

Dvn. {Intercepting him) Stop, /';« not satisfied with what 
you've got, and you will please disgorge. 

Col. Never ! 

Dvn. Bings, fetch a policeman. {Bings goes C.) 

Col. No, stop, here you are. {Gives back checques.) And now 
good day. {Going) 

Dyn. One moment longer, you said you would give me a guar- 
antee in writing that you would be silent with regard to Lady 
Sybil and myself. 

Col. That was when I had the money. 

Dyn. Oh, you wouldn't let such a trifle as £30,000 affect your 
diploma of respectability, you know you gave me your word of 
honor. 

Col, You would not take it then. 

Dyn. Nor will I take it now, and that is why I have written 
something on this paper {rising and coming down) which you will 
be good enough to sign, {reads) I, Colonel, Sir Breton Osborne, 
hereby confess that 1 have forged the name of Lord Douglas Dynevor 
to cheques on his account, at the London & County Bank, aggrega- 



38 

ting 5 thousand pounds. Kow you will sign your name in full in 
presence of we 4 witnesses. 

Col. {Thro'' his teeth.) Curse you all. (signs) There! 

Dyn. Thanks, and now you will also append your autograph to 
this, [reads) On demand I promise to pay Douglas Dynevor, or 
order, £5,000. 

Col {Signs.) You have me now; but I'll be even with you 
yet. 

Dyn. Bings will show you the door, but remember that the 
first word of slander from you of Lady Sybil will be the signal for 
the proclamation of Col. Sir Breton Osborne as a thief, and your 
own arrest for forgery. 

Col. {At C.) Do you hear. Il'l be level with you yet! 
{Exit.) 

Sadie. He's gone, he's gone, you've beat him ! 

Dyn. And she is saved. Thank G-od! Thank G-od! 

Picture 

Sadie embraces Eiver., and then Bings, with comic exuberance 

till curtain. 



ACT IV, 



The Lawn at Dynevor Hall. Outside the Conservatory. 
Moonlight. 
Disc'd. Lady Sybil on Rustic Seat 
Rasp Arranging Pillows and Cloud around Her. 

Rasp. Your Ladyship is sure you won't catch cold ? 

Sybil. You are very kind, no. 

Rasp. Shall I not bring you even a glass of wine ? 

Sybil. No ; I thank you, nothing. 

Rasp. But remember, your Ladyship is disobeying the doctor's 
orders, which were that you should be kept absolutely quiet and 
undisturbed until his next visit in the morning. 

Sybil. Yes, I know, but doctors sometimes attach too much im- 
portance to trifling ailments. I am not ill ; only a little faint, and 
the air is so soft, it will soon restore me. 

Rasp. Then, there is nothing else I can do for your Ladyship? 

Sybil. Thank you ; no. {Rasp ts going). Yes you can tell me 
the time. 

Rasp, It is nearly 10. 

Sybil. Nearly 10. (Sighs.) 

Rasp. (At back.) That woman has the courage of 6 miserable 
men. But of course, she has the blood of the Riverdales in her. 
Only a little faint, when she has received a shock that will last 
her as long as she lives. (Exit.) 

Sybil. Nearly 10, and it was 7 o'clock when that woman came. 
Three hours! I seem to have lived three centuries. 



39 

Enter Sadie. 

Sadie. Oh, there yovL are; oh, my darling, it's kind o' rash sit- 
ting out here in the air; you will catch a chill and then 

Sybil. I could not stay a moment longer in the house. I felt as 
tho' I were choking. 

Sadie. Well, you needn't feel so any longer, for we've choked 
him. 

Sybil. Him, who? 

Sadie. Colonel Osborne, the villian ! 

Sybil. Is he still here ? 

Sadie. Oh, no he got his conge and you won't be troubled with 
him again, I guess. Why, my darling, would you believe it. He's 
a forger. 

Sybil. A forger? 

Sadie. Yes. He's been forging Lord Dynevor's name while he has 
been away, to the tune of £5,000, but he'll forge no more, for Dyne- 
vor exposed him and sent him yelping off like the miserable cur 
he is. 

Sybil. Then what has happened ? 

Sadie. A revolution, and for once virtue is triumphant and vil- 
lainy is the 'possum up a gum tree. 

Sybil. Do you mean that the story about that woman, then, is not 
true? 

Sadie. No ; that seems unfortunately to be only too true ; horri- 
bly true. 

Sybil. Yes ; I had forgot. He himself, confessed she was his 
wife. Oh, Sadie, Sadie ! what shall I do ? 

Sadie. 1 guess I don't know exactly, but I wish I had you all 
over in the States, I'd have Dynevor and that creature divorced, 
and you and he' up before a mayor who should make you man and 
wife again before that wretch Osborne had time to tell your story 
in the first lager beer saloon around the corner. 

8yMl. There can be no such hope, for were he severed from her 
here, she would still be his wife by the laws of France, which ad- 
mit of no separation but that of death. 

Sadie. Then that law 's a stupid one, and the men that framed it 
were idiots. I wish they were all married to a dozen each of such 
women as she was. I guess at the next sitting of the House that 
law would be repealed. 

Sybil. No, Sadie, there is no hope. Nothing can brighten my 
wretched future, nor blot out the miserable past. Nothing will ever 
restore me once again to the place I have lost in the world's esteem 
and in my own ; nothing can give me back my once good name, 
or undo the shameful dishonor of my ruined life. {Falls in tears 
on Sadie's neck.) 

Sadie. Come, cheer up, darling, walk a little ; you are ill. Be- 
sides, don't fear, there are iDrighter days in store. When the clouds 
look the blackest, they have always a silver lining; let us try to 
look at them from their silver side. {Exeunt, embracing.) 

Enter Adolph. 

Adolph. I waited at the King's Head a long while for the Colo- 
nel, for whom I got kicked out; there's no mincing the matter. I 
was kicked out. That's the worst of a gentleman being in the ser- 
vice of a low blackguard. Well, as honest men won't have me, I 
must put up with the unavoidable and fasten myself once again on 
to the Colonel. Ah, here he comes, 



40 

Enter Col. and Marg. 

Marg. You had better have taken my advice and let my business 
and me alone. You have been beaten and you have no money 
after all. 

Col. I am only baulked, not beaten. 

Marg. Still you have constituted yourself my business man only 
to achieve a failure in my affairs. 

Col. Not altogether. There is a hope yet. 

Marg, Pray, let me hear if it is as foolhardy as the others you 
have submitted. 

Col. Foolhardy! Why, I have never carried an affair so near a 
successful issue in my life. T should have come out a glorious win- 
ner and have gratified my revenge as well, but for ihat idiot I em- 
ployed to spy for me. {Sees Adolph, who has just come down.) You 
infernal — Odts at him). 

Adolph. {Parries the Mow and holds his arm in his grip.) You 
forgot the -muscle. {Throws him off.) Moreover, you forget our re- 
lationship, that of brothers. 

Col. Brothers ! 

Adolph. Yes, in rascality. 

Col. You ! {threatening.) 

Adolph. Now, come, don't boil over any more, bank your fires, 
go slow. 1 made a blunder, I admit it, I ask pardon. What more 
can a gentleman do ? But I've been kicked. I ft el a natural desire 
to return the little attention. So give me a chance to retrieve my 
character. 

Col. You shall have it. Go at once to the nearest magistrate. 
Take these instructions, {handi'^g him Utter) bring a detective back 
with you, and by the time you return I will be ready for him. 

Adol. Good eDough. I fly. I am in earnest in this business now, 
for I've been kicked, and if I don't give that kick back again, why, 
I'll give you leave to speak to His Lordship about it. {Exit) 

Marg. What do you want an officer for ? 

Col. For a last desperate attempt. In the settlement we made / 
am bound to silence, for if I speak I am in for seven years. But no 
such weight shuts down your lips. You were no party to the ar- 
rangement. Your terms are still to be exacted. If they would give 
me £50,000 for silence, they will even more quickly give it you ; if 
not, when Adolphus returns we will bring them to their senses. 

Marg. Once more I beg of you to give this up and let me go. 

Col. For the last time I tell you, never ! Ah, I see the two men. 
Come, I will arrange your course of action. {Exit with her.) 

Enter River, and Dynevor. 

Dyn. But, my dear Riverdale, you shall have every proof that it 
is possible for a man to give. 

Biver. How do you propose to make me believe that you had 
absolute proof of your wife's death, when your wife is at this mo- 
ment a living woman ? 

Byn. Riverdale, I am the victim of some horrible mistake. As 
you know, I went to Paris the very day I received the news. I 
identified the body of Margaret Kilsyth in the morgue, and for de- 
cency's sake I followed it to the grave, and with it, as I thought, I 
buried The Dead Past of my life forever. 

Mimr. And you never knew of the extraordinary resemblance 
between the cousins? 



41 

Dyn. Until to-day I never even knew of the existence of a second 
Margaret Kils^^th. I only lived with this woman six weeks. 

River. I want to believe you, Dynevor. 

Dyn. And you will, old fellow; you do, I know you do. Think 
back; have I ever done or even said anything in all my life that 
should make you doubt my honesty? 

River. {Pause.) No, and by Jove I won't doubt it any longer ; 
upon my soul I won't. 

Dyn. Thank you, old fellow, thank you. (Shakes hands.) But, 
so that your doubts may never return, now come with me by the 
tidal train to-night and you shall verify for yourself every word I 
have spoken. Do come, so that when I am gone forever, you may 
be able to give her the slight consolation of knowing that she did 
not waste her love upon an altogether worthless cheat. 

River. I will go with you ; tho' as for her, poor girl, I fear there 
is no comfort in this world for her from now. 

Dyn. There must be some curse upon me, Riverdale, or surely I 
should not twice in my life have become the victim of such a fear- 
ful fate. If I alone could suffer, I should not care, but the most 
cruel pang of all I feel, is that my misery should entail such 
calamity on her. 

River. No good repining, what is to be done ? You have closed 
that scoundrel's mouth and assured her safety from his venomous 
tongue, but what of her future and your own ? 

Dyn. There is but one course ; we must separate. You will take 
her under 3^our protection; she will live beneath your wife's roof ; 
I will make it known that I alone am the offending one ; a thousand 
stories shall gain currency thro' me and blaming me, but none shall 
ever guess the truth. She shall be free from the lightest breath of 
slander. 

River. Dynevor, you are a good fellow, you are, upon my soul, 
you are, and you deserve a better fate. 

Dyn. See, she is coming this waj^ with your wife. 

River. Come away, {drawing him.) You must not meet again. 

Dyn. No, we must not {Going and^ returns.) Heaven, how ill 
she looks and I may not give her one word of tenderness and con- 
solation. •^■- * 

River. No ; come away ; 'tis better for you both. 

Dyn. Aye, may be so. {going) but Riverdale, man, man, my 
whole soul is going out to her. Let go, I say; loose your hold; I 
must, I will {throics him off), speak to her again! 

Enter Sadie and Sybil— (Picture and Pause.) 

River. Sadie {she crosses to him at bach), I am cfbnvinced now. 
She is safe with him. Their suffering is sacred. Let us go. {Exit 
with her) -{A painful pause, neither knowing how to speak.) 

Dyn. You are looking very ill. 

Sybil. You — are— so— too. 

Dyn. Would I could bear your pain as well as mine. 

Sybil. 'Twould be a load too heavy for the bravest man. 

Dyn. I was strong three short hours ago, and thought myself capa- 
ble of bearing any weight the hand of fate could lay upon me, for 
then I held you in my arms, the proudest man on earth; but the 
dense shadow I could almost feel has become a living, horrible 
reality ; has risen out of the tomb of a dead past and now confronts 
me with a present full of torture and a future charged with teri:ible 
xeinor^e,- »• ■- ' • 



42 



Sybil. Six montbs ago when you told me all, I pitied you ; you 
have my pity still. 

Dyn ' Aye, mine is a pitiful fate, but what human pity is pro- 
found enough to compassionate the misery that I have brought on 
you ? 

Sybil. I am, indeed, unhappy. 

Byn. And have you no reproach for him who has made you so, 
and who must appear so mean and odious to your eyes? 

Sybil. Such teeming wretchedness as mine can find no courage 
for reproaches. 

Dyn. It can only weep, weep for its degradation and dishonor, 
weep vain hopeless tears for the faith and hope that are forever 
gone, but could it find tenderness enough for some slight token 
of forgiveness, I, even I, your wronger, would almost dare to sue for 
pardon for the barbarity and folly of which you are the hapless 
victim. I would plead in ihe name of the exalted love I swear I 
gave you, I would conjure you, by the memory of the days when I 
tried to make myself worthy of the sacred trusts you reposed in me. 
(Pause.) Oh, Sybil ! Sybil ! You cannot and you will not believe 
that I was capable of plucking so fair a flower as you, of blasting 
your beauty and your fragrance, only to fling you from me like a 
loathsome weed at last. 

Sybil. Whatever I may think, matters little now, for we can 
never more be aught to one another. 

Bj'n. Never! never! I am hereto bid you an eternal farewell. 

Sybil. {Sobs aloud.) 

Dyn. But e'er I go, I must have your assurance that you be- 
lieved me honest ; that, in spite of the tangled skein of infamy that 
has enmeshed me, you believe I sinned in ignorance alone; for, as 
heaven is my witness, 1 could not he to you. Yet how can I hope 
to make you believe when I am racked with fearful doubts myself; 
for have I not seen the woman who says she is my Mife, and gazed 
upon her features till tliev^ seem to have become a part of my very 
eyes, which I shall never again close out? I have analyzed her face 
with all the intensity of which my brain is capable. I have absorbed 
her very voice into my ears, and yet, despite my ears, my eyes, and 
in defiance of my reason, 1 say, I followed my wife, Margaret Kil- 
syth, to her grave in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise. {Pause.) Oh, 
Sybil, say that you believe me, or my heart will break. 

Sybil. Have no fear of tliat. I have learnt now how much a 
heart can bear and still not break. 

Dyn But I must convince you I am not the villain that man 
has painted me. I cannot, will not part from you until I hear the 
blest assurance from your own lips that you do believe I loved you 
in all purity, and that when I stood by your side at the altar, 1 
thought myself free to take you for my wife. 

Sybil. Whatever may have been your sin, your punishment — 

Dyn. Sybil, my punishment is greater than I can bear, but there 
is a higher court than that of man, the tribunal of the Almighty 
God! and before that awfn] presence I solemnly declare that I be- 
lieved her dead, and that 1 loved you with all the chastity of soul of 
which a mortal can be capable. Say that you believe me; say it, or 
I shall go mad I 

Sybil. (Hesitating pause.) I will, I will ; I do believe you 1 
_ Dyn. (Expresses his deep gratitude by feature and attitude ; is about 
impetuously to^embrace her, when h& again resblis^ thHT ntv^tion and 
speaks with forced calmness.) There rema-ins no more theo bnli 



43 

to part, to bid you an adieu that must be everlasting. I have 
made all arrangements with Lord Riverdale, your brother, who 
will find you an asylum beneath his roof, where you will be 
safe from all calumny and slander. I cannot hope you will be 
happy, but I pray you may try, at least to forgive, and per- 
haps in time you may forget, as »n ell, that such an unhappy wretch 
as I ever cast the blight of his fatal love over the joy of your un- 
spotted youth. Good bye. 

Sybil. {Weeping) Stay, and you, what will you do? Where will 
you go ? In what place will you find oblivion ? 

Dyn. While your pain lives, mine can never have an end. There 
is no corner of the earth where i can hide myself from a remorse 
that per force must be eternal. In time, even you may pardon, but 
I shall never forgive myself. Good-bye ! good-bye ! and may God 
help you — {Going.) 

Sybil. (Sobbing loudly.) Lord D}'nevor! Douglas! Douglas! 
Do not leave me yet. {He ?'eturn,s.) I know I have been greatly 
wronged, yet, if it will make you less wretched in your future 
wanderings to know that I thought you loyal true and honest, take 
with you all the comfort that the knowledge can bestow ; for I did 
believe you — and I — I — I — do so still! 

Dyn. Thank God ! thank God ! (Going.) 

Sybil. And I would have you know as well, I think you are 
more sinned against than sinning. {Breaks down completely.) Oh, 
Douglas ! Douglas ! What have we done that we should be pun- 
ished so? 

Dyn. Sybil, do not speak to me like this, you will rob me of all 
the man there is still left in me, and make me feel that parting is 
impossible. 

Sybil. Douglas, it is impossible, for I cannot part from you. 

Dyn. Sybil, you must. 

Sybil. I cannot, I will not. I would rather die. {Throws herself 
upon Mm ) 

Dn. Sybil, remember what / am; remember what we have 
been, and that you are Lady Sybil Eiverdale. I cannot suffer you 
to do yourself such wrong as this, for which you would blame both 
yourself and me hereafter. 

Sybil. I know full well what I am doing; you only reason coldly, 
while 1 love, Douglas. Love with all my soul! 1 cannot let you 
go! After all that we have been to one another, we cannot part as 
mere strangers. Think, I have been yours in the holiest possession 
a woman can render to a man; then "^keep me, keep me, yours for- 
ever. 

Dyn. Sybil, for the love of God I do not tempt me so. {Throws 
her arms off.) Loose your arms or I shall feel I must unsay all that 
honor bade me speak, and clasp you to my heart in defiance of that 
woman and of all the world! 

Sybil Clasp me, then, and keep me, and let the dead past be 
forever buried and forgotten, for I cannot live without you. 

Dyn. Sybil, Sybil, have mercy! 

Sybil. Mercy! Is it mercy to tear my very heart strings from 
my bosom ? No, if you will go, kill me 'ere you go, for life without 
you will be a living death. 

Dyn. Sybil, think, we should neither of us ever enjoy happiness 
again. In your calmer moments, you would no longer honor me, 
and I should deserve all that man has said, for I should have ceased 
to respect myself. 



u 



ISyhil. You have never really loved me. 

Dyn. I have, I did, I do. 

Sybil. Not as I have loved, for in the last 3 hours of bitter agony 
I have felt I would have given my soul to have your arms about 
me once again, and to feel the burning of j^our lips on mine. 
Douglas, I am still your wife ! She who calls herself such is only 
wife in name. Our souls themselves are united, and my heart is 
fused in yours in an inextinguishable lov-.', which has made us one 
forever in the sight of God ! ! ! 

Dyn. My love! My wife! My soul!!! {They dvse in a passion- 
ate embrace. 

Enter Col., leading Marg. 

Picture. 

Cot. As I suspected! 

Sybil. (Breaking from Dyn's embrace and turning like a tigress 
on Marg.) And it is you! I see you at last! You, who have 
twice blighted his life, and now^ seek to blast my happiness and 
'honor! Why do you come back to him? What demon prompted 
you to come ? 

Dyn. 'Twas he. {Iiidicating Col.) Answer, was it not he? 
None, but such a one, steeped to the very lips in vice and shame; 
knowing that I was deceived — and that you were still alive, could 
have permitted me to lead an angel to the altar, degrading her to 
worse than nothing, only to gratify a barbarous revenge ! 

Sybil. But he shall not sunder us. No, you, Douglass, gave me, 
your love, your home, your honor; he, she, and all the world 
weighed against those precious gifts, are but as feathers in the 
scale. 

Marg. (Advances 'xvith Col. one stef^ 

Sybil. (Standing before Dyn. and uplifting her hand.) Stand 
back, you shall not part us! 

Col. This is highly theatrical, and were it on a stage, instead of 
in real life, would be a very effective scene, no doubt. But that 
man is this woman's husband, quit his side. 

Sybil. Never while I have life. 

Col. Then it will be our painful duty to bring you to a sense of 
the proprieties. 

Dyn. Do you, then, after what has passed, dare again to show 
yourself to me? 

Col. Not as my own solicitor, but as the guardian of this lady's 
rights. When h*r interests are satisfactorily adjusted, I will 
retire. 

Dyn. And I must perforce submit to your hateful presence ? 

Col. Yes, for in the game we are playing the points we have 
scored are equal. I am silent because I must be so. Your lips are 
sealed, for a very powerful reason, too. 

Sybil. Douglas, think no mor© of me. I care not tho' all the 
tongues on earth may wag their worst. Do not let that man defy 
you so, not even for my sake. Send for an officer and have him ar- 
rested as a forger and a thief 

Dyn I cannot, my darling, I cannot. 
_ Col. I hope your Ladyship now thoroughly appreciates my posi- 
tion and you own. The tables are turned at last. I swore to have 
revenge. I have waited, and my vengeance will satisfy me. 



45 

Enter River, and Sadie. 

But all this is a waste of time. This lady came from Paris to 
find her husband, aye, six months ago, but I kept her back. This 
morning shu thought she would insist on a restitution of her conjugal 
rights, but after seeing him in the embrace of this — good for noth- 
ing— 

Dyn. By Heaven ! {Sybil restrains him.) 

Col. She has come to the conclusion that it will be a better ar- 
rangement for him to settle a comfortable sum upon her, as he 
promised her this morning. 

Dy7t. I will, what sum ? ^ 

Col. £50,000! 

Dgn. I cannot do it. 

SyMl. But I can, Douglas, and I will. 

Marg. Oh! if you are so anxious to be free to revel in your for- 
bidden joys, we shall require a payment from you as well. 

Dyn. This must have an end. It is best, Sybil, to face the worst 
at once. They will never give us another moment's peace in life. 
No, woman, I utterly refuse, do your worst ! 

Gol. This is final ? 

Dyn. Final ! 

Enter Adolph. and Jenk3ms. 

Col. Ah, then, here is the ofilcer, just in time. Now, Lady Dy- 
nevor, make your charge. 

Marg. That man is my husband. I charge you to place him un- 
der arrest for bigamy. You have the warrant, have you not.'' 

Adolph. He has ! I got it from the magistrate according to in- 
structions. 

Jenkyn. {Touches Dyn. upon the shoulder.) Now, sir. 

Dyn. And so the worst has come. Good bye, Sybil, my wife, 
good bye, good bye. 

Sybil. No, no, Douglas, they cannot take you from me, they 
shall not part us, I am your wife, and I will go with you {Cling- 
ing to him.) 

Jenkyns. Very sorry madam, but that's agin the regulations. 
He must go alone. {Taking Dyn. up. She di7iging to him and 
screaming. No. Every character moves excitedly. Dyn. and Jenkyn 
reach ahout L. (7., and the excitement is at ifs climax, when 

Enter Fritout and Bin^s. 

Marg. {Turns her back to Fritout immediately and goes down R. C.) 

Fritout. Ah ! Mes amis, vat is ze raison of zese so much noises ? 
Is Madame Mi Lady Malade not well ? 

Col. No, she is not, for her lover is under arrest for bigamy. 

Fritout. Bigamy ! Who is bigamy ? 

Col. Lord Dynevor. 

Fritout. Mi Lord Dynevor. Bigamy ! Vat, haves he more wif es 
zen since he vas marry to Lady Sybil ? 

Col. No, but he had a wife before. 

Fritout. Oh, yes; oui, vraiment, certainment; but she vas dead. 

Col. Oh, no ; not at all ; she still lives. 

Fritout. Vraiment ! and vere she is ? 

Col. Here. {Touching Marg. on shoulder.) 

Fritout. Ah ! faites moi le plaisir. Introduce me. 



46 

Gol. To be sure. M. le Count Leon Bonaparte Fritout — Lady 
Douglas Dynevor ! 

Marg. {Bows with her hack to Fritout.) 

Fritout. She haves a very nice back, and I have some memories 
of a back viz much ze same pattern on it, so I vil even regard her 
face, if she vil permettez moi. {Turns Marg. around, much against 
her will.) {Pause.) Ah, Madame Celestine! why do you depart 
from your gambling hell in ze Rue Garonne, in Paris ? Because ze 
city vas too hot for you, vas it not ? Eh, tell me zat, Madame La 
Contesse Leon Bonaparte Fritout ? 

Omnes. Countess Fritout! 

River. Then this is the lady you spoke of at the lunch 6 montks 
ago? 

Fritout. Yes, zere is no mistake. Zis lady is not ze vife of Lord 
Dynevor. 

Omnes. Not his wife ! 

Fritout. No, for she is mine ! 

Omnes. Your wife ? 

Fritout. Yes, ze Lord help me, I am sorry it is so. She is my 
vife. 

Sybil. Deuglas! Douglas! j. / et^t,^^.. ^ 

Douglas. Sybil ! my darling ! \ (^^^^«''^- ) 

Sadie. {Embraces River, and Rings together.) 

Co I. {Raging furiously.) 

Jenkyn Then there is some mistake here? 

Gol. Yes, on the part of this foreign gentleman. He evidently 
takes this lady for some one else 

Fritout. No such luck. I visb I did. Lord Dynevor, you re- 
member I vas run avay viz suddenness ze day of ze lunch 6 months 
ago — because I see sometings ? 

Byn. Yes. 

Fritout. Ye], ze sometings I see vas zis: My vife! she lead me 
such lifes of dogs and cats zat I vas terrify of her. Oh, she is a 
vicked voman, and her cousin, zat vas you wife, was as worse as 
her. 

Col. Her cousin— your wife — is dead. 

Fritout. Non, pas dutout. Her cousin — his wife — is dead. 

Col. Prove it ! 

Fritout. Avecplajsir! {Whispers Lord Dynevor.) 

Dyn. True, very true. If, Madam, you are the woman whom I 
made my wife, you will at once remember which of my arms it was 
I broke on the fourth day after our marriage. 

Marg. {After a tnonenfs f)ause.) It was the left. 

Dyn. You are wrong, 

Marg. {Eagerly.) Yes; of course, I remember; it was the 
right. 

Dyn. Wife, Riverdale, friends. She is an imposter. I am free, 
for I never broke an arm at all. 

CoL^' [(^« /^^<^^ ^«.^^-) 

Fritout. Beside, I vas know her only too well, despite ze won- 
derful resemblance; my vife have a wide streak of white hair on 
ze top of her head vich her cousin, your vife, had not. {Tears 
off her bonnet), and zere it is ! I have been six months in Paris 
and have discovered all your schemes viz ze Colonel here, and I 
am come back to blow you up! 



Marg. 'Tis useless to hold out any longer; I am this man's 
wife, I admit, and I have, at the instigation of Col. Osborne, who 
promised me a large sum of money, attempted to practice this 
imposture on you. He had me in his power, or I would never have 
agreed. My poor cousin, who wa5 your wife, my Lord, did die, and 
you followed her to the grave yourself. This man's mad cravings 
for revenge .against you, prompted him to take advantage of the 
marvellous resemblance between us to play this cheat upon you. 

Sybil. Then you are my real true husband ? 

Dyn. I am, my darling wife. Thank heaven! 

Col. Since then, I have been duped by this miserable woman. I 
will wish you all good night. 

Dyn. Not quite so fast. Officer, I give this man in charge for 
forgery. 

Jenkyn. What is the person's name ? 

Dyn. Sir Breton Osborne. 

Jenkyn. Oh, indeed, I've had a warrant in my pocket for his 
arrest these three days on a similar charge. Colonel Sir Breton 
Osborne, I shall have to tear you from the bosom of your regiment. 
Allow me to present you with this pair of steel bracelets. {Hand- 
cuffs Mm.) 

Adolph. (Is slinking off when Bings collars Mm and throws him 
down G.) I can't hear what's going on. but I can see justice is 
being done, so while you're about it, take poker-back, as well. 
They're a fine couple. 

Jenkyn. Come gentlemen. 

Col. My curses on you all. (Exit.) 

Adolph. (Is about to say the saine with ultradignity.) Bings 
kicks Mm and he exits with a howl and jump — Bings -after Mm.) 

Sybil. And what of her ? 

Dyn. Wife, forgive her; it was he who forced her to the crime 
she had almost conimitted. I will pardon her ; do you the same 

Sybil. I will; go and try to live a better woman. 

Marg. Yes, that s very kind and very pretty, but the advice 
comes a little too late in life for me ; so, tho' I can't be Lady Dyne- 
vor, I am still Countess Bonaparte Fritout, and I intend to make the 
most of my position I came to seek my husband six months ago. 
He ran away from me then, but I have caught him now, and I mean 
to stick to him. Come along ! (Siezes Fritout arid drags him off\ 
He gesticulating and screaming in comic horror. 

Miver. Will you ever forgive me, old boy, that 1 doubted you a 
whole two hours ? 

Sadie. I have no forgiveness to ask for. I knew you were a 
true man, every inch of you, all the time ; A 1 in all the qualities, 
in fact good enough to have been an American. 

Sybil. Then you may hold me to your heart again. 

Dyn. Yes, my darling wife, happy that our mutual love has sunk 
e'en deeper in our souls with the agony of the past few hours, agony 
that shall have it's compensation in a heightened happiness risen 
out of the ashes of 

"A DEAD PAST." 



